Over the weekend, Israel withdrew troops from southern Gaza, particularly the city of Khan Iunis, and moved them across the strip’s perimeter, in a tactical move based on military needs, but which coincides with with political needs due to the United States’ displeasure with the conduct of the war by its Israeli ally. Basically, and as the experts already announced, the departure of Khan Iunis is part of the plan to attack the city of Rafah, at the southern end of the territory.
This was confirmed yesterday by the Israeli Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, when he said that he had withdrawn the troops to “prepare the continuation of the missions”, including an operation in Rafah. “Our forces are preparing to continue the missions (…) in the Rafah area”, he said.
The statement from the Israeli army said yesterday: “Today, Sunday, April 7, the 98th Commando Division of the Israeli army completed its mission in Khan Iunis. The division left the Gaza Strip to (…) prepare for future operations”. The army added that a “significant force” would continue to operate in the small Palestinian territory in line with its strategic needs, in the seventh month of a devastating war waged by Israel against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
“A significant force led by the 162nd division and the Nahal brigade continues to operate in the Gaza Strip to ensure the army’s freedom of action and its ability to carry out precise intelligence-based operations,” he stressed. ‘army in the statement. The Nahal brigade, which maintains the partition of the strip, is right now the only operational unit, which effectively means a reduction in forces. But the fact that the withdrawn troops are outside the perimeter – for an hour, it was said – means that they will be able to make incursions into the strip again at the moment when the high boss demands it, at least in one-off actions.
The Israeli newspapers Haaretz and Yediot Aharonot claim that the withdrawal of the infantry from the south of the strip is motivated by the fact that the army has achieved its objectives there. According to a military official quoted by Haaretz, Israel “no longer needs to be in the strategic sector”, since “the 98th division dismantled the Hamas brigades in Khan Iunis and killed thousands of its members. We did everything we had to do.”
Regarding the matter, this withdrawal of cash should not confuse the much-announced offensive on Rafah, in the southern tip of the territory, where one and a half million Gazans are taking refuge. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said yesterday, the day six months had passed since the attack by Hamas on Israeli territory, that “we are one step away from victory”. Ron Ben Yishai, of Yediot Aharonot, pointed out yesterday that “you don’t need to be a military expert to understand that the return home of the hundreds of thousands of residents of the Khan Iunis area who fled to Rafah will be part of the great evacuation plan ” of the army in the Rafah area “so that the four remaining battalions of the Hamas brigades in Rafah can finally be dismantled” and the tunnels on the border with Egypt “be blocked”.
In other words, it would be a matter of forcing the population to move again, this time towards the north, to break into Rafah as Netanyahu has been insisting. Thus, yesterday, an AFP photographer was able to see dozens of people leaving Rafah in the direction of Khan Iunis, on foot, by car or in carts pulled by donkeys.
According to Omer Dostri, an expert at the Washington Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), quoted by AFP, “in two months there will be an operation in Rafah to destroy the remaining Hamas brigades.”
And, once Hamas is eliminated from Gaza, Israel will “launch a campaign in the north” against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The Israeli army has been exchanging gunfire almost every day with the Lebanese Shia militia since October 7.
But for Omer Dostri, the main reason for the withdrawal of the weekend is “the great pressure” exerted recently by Washington. The President of the United States, Joe Biden, raised for the first time on Thursday the possibility of making his aid to Israel conditional on “tangible” measures to improve the humanitarian situation and the preservation of civilians in Gaza.
The reduction of Israeli forces on the ground “may be useful in the context of negotiations” for a truce and the return of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, Dostri explained.
In this sense, Egyptian sources said yesterday that a “humanitarian break” is being studied during the day of Id al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, from tomorrow Tuesday to Wednesday. The director of the Mossad, David Barnea; the Shin Bet (internal security), Ronen Bar, and General Nitzam Alon went to Cairo yesterday morning.
