Israel says Hamas has been destroyed in north Gaza, now focusing on central, south

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Israel war 2023

By Alex Oliveira

Israel’s military says Hamas has been destroyed in northern Gaza and that the Jewish state will now concentrate on its central and southern regions — with the war set to last at least a year.

The Palestinian terror group’s 12 battalions operating out of north Gaza have been defeated, Israel Defense Forces Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari announced over the weekend.

“We have completed the dismantling of Hamas’s military framework in the northern Gaza Strip and will continue to deepen the achievement,” Hagari said.

He said that while there will continue to be scattered fighting in the north, Hamas has been left “without a framework and without commanders” there.

“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,” he said.

The official said the center and southern part of Gaza are “dense and saturated with terrorists” using “an underground city of branching tunnels,” according to the Guardian.

Maj Gen Amos Yadlin said, “It will take a year to dismantle Hamas.

“The timeline is long,” he said.

“In 2002, it took two months to get into Palestinian cities and two years to make the terror stop,” Yadlin said, referring to the Israeli offensive in the West Bank after a series of suicide bombings there more than two decades ago. “So Israel is looking at nine months to a year [in Gaza now]. It depends on how long Hamas will hold [on].”

Around 8,000 Hamas militants have been killed in the IDF’s campaign in northern Gaza alone, with key commanders killed and about 30,000 weapons confiscated, according to the Financial Times.

The announcement marked a major development in Israel’s campaign to eradicate Hamas and came on the three-month anniversary of the terror group’s deadly Oct. 7 sneak attack on Israel, which resulted in about 1,200 Israeli deaths and 240 people taken hostage.

Before the weekend announcement, Israel had already begun scaling back its operations in north Gaza and diverting resources to offensives in central and south Gaza.

The Biden administration has been urging Israel to wind down its ground campaign and rocket assaults on the territory and focus instead on more targeted attacks on Hamas leadership, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has maintained vows to not ease up on the war until the terror group no longer poses any threat to Israel.

Meanwhile, although the IDF’s military objectives are clear — the total destruction of Hamas — its ability to eliminate anti-Israeli sentiment that pervades generations of Gazan citizens will be much more difficult to come by.

Documents recovered by the IDF during its northern campaign proved Hamas’ leadership has been using youth summer camps in Gaza to indoctrinate generations against Israel and “promote the culture of resistance and the values of Jihad among the children.”

The documents were written by Hamas’ military branch Al-Qassam Brigades in July, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Sunday to NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and outlined the true goals of the group’s summer camps.

Goals mentioned included “promoting the resistance and Jihadi culture,” nurturing “spiritual, mental and physical preparation of children to serve the resistance in the future,” and efforts “to contribute to the militarization of society through training,” according to the Jerusalem Post.

Israel’s brutal campaign against Hamas has also left the Palestinian citizenry reeling, with more than 20,000 Palestinians reportedly killed by rocket strikes and ground operations as of the new year.

Among the recent dead was the son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael Al-Dahdouh. Twenty-seven-year-old Hamza Wael Al-Dahdouh, a photojournalist with the outlet, was slain alongside a colleague in a rocket strike on the southern city of Khan Younis on Sunday.

The death toll is also creeping up among Palestinians in the West Bank, where more than 300 people have been killed since Oct. 7.

At least seven men were killed in an Israeli air strike on the West Bank on Sunday, according to CNN. Though IDF officials said the dead were terrorists, news that four of the victims were brothers led to outrage among Palestinians and a public funeral procession in the West Bank.

Complicating the increasingly delicate situation are heightened fears of a second front opening against Hezbollah in Lebanon as Israel and that terror group continue to exchange rocket fire over their borders.

About eight rockets launched from inside Lebanon landed in Israel on Sunday, with IDF forces firing back.

No casualties were reported on either side, but Israel has repeatedly warned that its patience is running short with the Lebanese government to reel in the heavily militarized Hezbollah.

Netanyahu warned in a cabinet meeting Sunday that Hezbollah needs to “learn what Hamas has already learned … no terrorist is immune,” according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

“We are determined to protect our citizens and return the residents of the north safely to their homes,” Netanyahu said, adding, “We will do it through diplomatic methods, and if not, we will act in other ways.”

US officials have been desperately trying to mitigate the growing tensions on the Lebanese border over fears Netanyahu will open up a new front to try to secure his political position, according to a report from the Washington Post.

Diplomats dispatched to the region have warned Israel that a recent assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that an IDF victory against Hezbollah would be hard to come by with its resources already spread across the Gaza war.

With Post wires