War between Israel and Hamas: The Israeli army says it has hit Hezbollah’s positions in Lebanon
Israel, which said this weekend it had successfully dismantled Hamas’s military structure in the north of the Gaza Strip, said it was taking a different tactical approach in the south, where a population seeking safety there fears how the war could develop. will play out over time. the upcoming months.
Vice Admiral Daniel Hagari said Saturday that the military in central and southern Gaza, where most of the enclave’s population of about 2.2 million people is crowded, operates differently than in the north, including about a million evacuees from the north. But he did not elaborate on what specifically would change, saying the shift was based on lessons “learned from the fighting so far.”
In the northern half of the strip, where Israel began its ground invasion in late October, the army has “completed the dismantling of the Hamas military framework,” Admiral Hagari said, although he added that forces there are still operating against fighters who continue continuing the fight even after their chain of command is destroyed.
He added that fighting would continue through 2024.
Gabi Siboni, a colonel in the military reserves and member of the conservative-leaning Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, said Hamas maintained infrastructure above and below ground in the north, “so it is still a combat zone.” Despite the Israeli army’s achievements, Hamas is “a difficult and determined enemy” that has armed itself and “built underground fortresses” over the years, he said.
“It will take time to fully dismantle it,” Mr Siboni said, adding that the fighting in the south is made all the more complicated by the density of the civilian population there and may have to continue into 2025.
The Israeli army’s suggestion that fighting in Gaza would continue for the next year has further frightened Gaza residents who have already suffered heavy losses in the first three months of the war – family, friends, neighbors, homes , jobs, schools and even, in a growing number of cases, the ability to feed themselves.
“We face great danger, as unarmed civilians who have nothing to do with the resistance or carry weapons,” said Youssef, 32, a resident of Gaza City who has been displaced twice while trying to flee the fighting.
Although the Israeli army successfully ordered many Gazans in the north to evacuate further south in the early stages of the war – it is not known exactly how many there are – those in central and southern Gaza have nowhere to go, except to push further into the Gaza Strip. the severely congested city of Rafah, on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.
More than a million people are already trapped within Rafah’s borders, according to the United Nations. And people cannot move back north: apart from the ongoing fighting in northern Gaza, that part of the territory is largely in ruins.
The United Nations estimated at the end of December that about 65,000 homes had been destroyed across Gaza, and nearly 300,000 more damaged, meaning more than half a million people will have no home to return to.
For those whose homes were still habitable, the report said, many more would not be able to move into them right away because Gaza’s infrastructure had deteriorated so much, and explosives left over from the fighting would make return too risky.
Meanwhile, displaced people in Gaza face increasingly desperate shortages of food, water, warm clothing and shelter from the winter weather. According to aid groups, about half of Gazans are at risk of starvation.
“There are children and there is no food or clothing, especially because it is winter,” Youssef said. “When we talk about suffering, it takes me a long time to explain.”
He added: “We have the right to return home and see our children, and to have food, water and drink, and to be safe.”