IDF assessments on day 72 of Operation Iron Swords are that the war will continue for many more months and any announcement about the destruction of Hamas any time soon is disconnected from reality. As the troops are moving south to the city of Khan Younis, the fighting takes place alongside a civilian population that was not evacuated, making the Israelis more vulnerable as they are forced to move slowly to avoid collateral damage. Meanwhile, as Israeli fighters are advancing in targeted raids, the terrorists are firing explosives from the empty homes of the displaced population, hitting several soldiers each day.
Hamas is turning out to be indefatigable, and the IDF must regularly seek the most valuable targets, destroy more important tunnels, and not linger a day or two at every tunnel shaft it discovers. At this rate, the end of the war is still many months away, and the expectation that eliminating Hamas is around the corner is simply unrealistic.
The fighting in Khan Younis, a city roughly the size of Tel Aviv, is more complicated than it was in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, Ynet’s Yoav Zitun reported Sunday morning. The elite 98th Division has been operating for about two weeks in Khan Younis, with many tactical gains that rattle the cage in which senior Hamas officials are hiding underground, while above ground many of the residents have not been evacuated.
The 98th, comprised of infantry, tanks, and armored bulldozers, conduct their attacks literally in the middle of bustling city streets, outside stores, schools, civic institutions, and inside commercial malls. Under these conditions, Hamas fighters have no problem conducting sporadic attacks, successfully wounding and even killing soldiers.
Some ten days ago, combat engineering fighters took over a large school campus in Khan Younis, based on intelligence about terrorists preparing an ambush there, Zitun reported. The fighters cleared about half of the classrooms, but the campus was very large and they had to break for the night. After midnight, terrorists came out of a tunnel shaft inside the campus and two soldiers were killed. One reservist, 45, fought a close battle and eliminated the terrorists.
The army estimates that Hamas, entrenched in its underground shelters, studies the patterns of the IDF units that have arrived recently, and initially avoids exposure. But as time passes, the number of clashes is increasing and is likely to increase further after the IDF enters Hamas’s strongholds in Khan Younis, such as the refugee camps of the city. And the IDF has not yet entered the neighboring city of Deir al-Balah or the towns of al-Boreij and Nusirat north of Khan Younis.
The forces in Khan Younis are also dealing with thousands more Hamas terrorists who managed to escape in civilian clothing from the north of the Gaza Strip.
Even in the northern Gaza Strip there are still many more pockets of resistance. This weekend, fighters of the 401st Brigade of the Armored Corps and the 13th Naval Special Force fought for hours against dozens of Hamas terrorists in the luxury neighborhood of Rimal, which was one of the first targets reached by the IDF’s ground attack at the beginning of the war. At least 30 terrorists were eliminated in that battle, which was also fought inside a school that Hamas had turned into a military outpost.
Also in the northern Strip, in the Jabaliya area, the fighting continued on Saturday against dozens of terrorists that the fighters are trying to remove from their hiding places underground.
Thousands of terrorists, including senior Hamas officials, are still hiding in the southern Gaza Strip, in the cities and neighborhoods of Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Darj Tupah, Nusirat, and al-Boreij, which the IDF has not yet entered.
