Hamas's armed wing, Izaddin Kassam, on Monday announced that it was recruiting an additional 1,000 militiamen ahead of a possible IDF ground operation in the Gaza Strip. The group said that thousands of volunteers from the Gaza Strip had also asked to be recruited to the movement in the past 48 hours so that they could fight against IDF soldiers. The announcement came as sources close to Hamas said that the movement's armed wing had hardly been affected by the IDF operation that began on Saturday. The sources told The Jerusalem Post that many of the casualties in the first two days of the operation were "ordinary" policemen who had been recently recruited to various branches of the security forces. "These policemen were being enlisted to direct the traffic and fight crime," the sources said. "These are not the militiamen who are responsible for the rocket attacks on Israel."
This explains why Hamas did not rush to evacuate the headquarters of the "civilian" police force in Gaza City before the IDF offensive. On the contrary, the police chiefs decided to go ahead with plans to hold a graduation ceremony for the cadets on Saturday because they did not believe that they would be targeted by Israel.