Israel calls on Gaza residents to evacuate more territory as the offensive continues
“Our forces continue to intensify ground operations in northern and southern Gaza,” Admiral Daniel Hagari, the Israeli army’s chief spokesman, said Thursday evening.
Israel says it has achieved operational control in some areas in the north, but the harrowing progress is leading some prominent Israeli military analysts and political commentators to point to a widening gap between the reality on the ground and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rhetoric, who vowed Wednesday that the war “will continue until Hamas is eliminated – until victory.”
As the death toll in Gaza has soared and civilians have been pushed to a small southern corner of the enclave, Israel is under increasing pressure from the United States and other countries to scale back its operations and move to a less intensive phase of fighting in the Gaza Strip. coming weeks.
The military’s goal is to bring down Hamas’s rule in Gaza, destroy or degrade its military capabilities to the point that it no longer poses a threat to Israel, and return approximately 120 hostages remaining in Gaza .
But Hamas’ top leaders have so far evaded capture, and Gaza’s armed groups have continued to fire rockets into Israel, including two barrages that reached Tel Aviv and the surrounding area this week.
Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, dismissed Netanyahu’s statements about eliminating Hamas as “foolish” and “absurd propaganda.”
“Netanyahu is raising the slogan of victory and the elimination of Hamas,” Mr. Rishq said in a statement on Friday. He added: “It is an illusion and a mirage that will not be realized, and will collapse because of the steadfastness of our people.”
Political commentators and some military experts have lowered expectations for a quick and decisive victory.
“No one should imagine that there will be a situation where we will put a flag on the top of a hill and say, ‘Okay, we won, and now Gaza will be peaceful and safe.’ That won’t happen,” said Gabi Siboni, a colonel. in the reserves and a fellow at the conservative-leaning Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. “The reality is that we will continue to fight in Gaza for years to come.”
Others echoed that assessment. “There will be no ‘victory image,’” Ben Caspit, a political columnist and longtime critic of Mr. Netanyahu, wrote in Friday’s Maariv newspaper. He added: “The realization that ‘eliminating’ Hamas is an unrealistic short-term goal is creeping in.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant emphasized on Friday that the Israeli campaign will be long and “requires patience.” In northern Gaza, he said in a video statement, the army was “gradually achieving the objectives we set, including primarily dismantling Hamas battalions and depriving Hamas of its underground capabilities.”
Israel has used thousands of airstrikes, heavy bombs and artillery in its bid to dismantle Hamas and its infrastructure, and Gaza’s Health Ministry said Thursday that the death toll in Gaza exceeded 20,000.
During the first six weeks of the war, the country regularly used 2,000-pound bombs — some of the largest and most destructive — in areas it deemed safe for civilians, according to an analysis of visual evidence by The New York Times. Although bombs of that size are used by several Western militaries, munitions experts say they are almost never dropped in densely populated areas by US forces anymore.
Gazans who have left their homes and moved south say they do not feel safe there and that no area is off-limits to Israeli bombing. Israel on Friday called on people to leave Al Bureij and take shelter in Deir al-Balah, which is located slightly further south in central Gaza.
“It’s not safe here either,” Nevin Muhaisen, 35, a teacher from northern Gaza who moved to Deir al-Balah early in the war and shares an apartment with about 30 members of her extended family, said via WhatsApp. “I keep hearing explosions in the coastal part of the city and in Khan Younis,” she added.
Abu Bakr Bashir reporting contributed.