Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman has said Hamas is trying to develop a terror infrastructure in southern Lebanon from which to attack Israel. “The organization is in a tough place and is having a hard time carrying out terror attacks from the Gaza Strip,” he said during a Jan. 19 hospital visit to an Israeli special ops officer wounded in an operation to catch the Palestinian terror cell that murdered Rabbi Raziel Shevach Jan. 9 in the West Bank.

As I recently wrote in Al-Monitor, Hamas was responsible for the murder of settler Havat Gilad near an Israeli outpost, and for the first time since its 2014 war with Israel, the organization did not try to blur its involvement in the attack or play down its desire to execute similar ones.

Liberman attributed the organization’s current tactics and distress to the difficulties it has been encountering in carrying out attacks from its base in the Gaza Strip. During the second intifada (2000-2005), Hamas conducted most of its attacks against Israelis from the West Bank, not from Gaza. Today, it would be virtually impossible for a Hamas terror cell from Gaza to overcome Israel’s border fence and other security measures. Also, the tunnels it has dug into Israel were only intended to become operational in case of an all-out war with Israel, and even then, on a limited basis.

The Hamas military wing has always had its headquarters in the Gaza Strip, whereas its infrastructure, including the recruitment of suicide bombers and the establishment of regional military branches, was based in the West Bank. The movement never regarded Lebanon as territory in which it should invest operational resources to serve its military wing in times of need.