Israel says it has destroyed Hamas as a fighting force in north Gaza
The Israeli military says it has successfully destroyed Hamas as an organised fighting force in northern Gaza and has shifted its focus to the centre and south of the battered territory in a fresh stage of its war against the Palestinian militant group.
Three months after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel triggered the war, the Israel Defense Forces’ chief spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said that 12 Hamas battalions based in north Gaza were no longer functioning as coherent fighting units.
About 8,000 militants had been killed, including key field commanders, and 30,000 weapons seized, Hagari said. Israeli intelligence estimates that Hamas has two dozen battalions in total and about 25,000 to 30,000 fighters.
“We have completed the dismantling of Hamas’s military framework in the northern Gaza Strip and will continue to deepen the achievement,” Hagari said in a briefing on Saturday evening.
“Now, we are focusing on dismantling Hamas in the central and southern Gaza Strip. We will do this differently, thoroughly, based on the lessons we have learned from the fighting so far.”
While heavy air strikes and ground combat were still reported over the weekend in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis and refugee camps in the territory’s centre, military analysts were clear that Israel had already moved into the war’s “low intensity” phase, at least in Gaza’s north.
This phase of the war, according to Israeli war planners and US officials, will involve more targeted operations by smaller IDF forces in an effort to minimise Palestinian civilian casualties. More than 22,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza so far, according to health officials in the Hamas-ruled territory.
The IDF has also begun creating a “buffer zone” inside Gaza, in some cases likely to stretch 1km into the territory, as part of new defences along the border.
80% of all buildings in north Gaza damaged or destroyed
The fighting in Gaza comes as tensions escalate on Israel’s northern border with the Iran-backed Hizbollah movement based in Lebanon. Hizbollah has been trading almost daily cross-border fire with Israel since the war between Israel and Hamas began. Senior Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri was killed last week in a suspected Israeli missile strike in Beirut.
Hizbollah launched about 60 rockets at Israel on Saturday morning in a move that the powerful militant group called “part of an initial response” to the Arouri killing.
Israel has also said they will pursue the removal of Hizbollah forces from the Jewish state’s northern border, to facilitate the return of 80,000 Israeli residents displaced from their homes by the fighting.
“This will take time. The fighting will continue throughout 2024, as we work according to a plan to achieve the war’s objectives,” Hagari said on Saturday.
War moving into fresh phase, says military, with more targeted focus on centre and south of Palestinian enclave
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