The Israel Defense Forces is nearing the end of its ground offensive in the northern Gaza Strip after dismantling most Hamas battalions in the area, IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Wednesday.
The military has begun fighting Hamas in the Gaza City neighborhoods of Daraj and Tuffah, adjacent to Shejaiya, he said, nearly two months since the IDF began the ground offensive, which has focused largely on northern Gaza.
On the Hamas tunnel network found hidden beneath Palestine Square in Gaza City, Hagari said during a briefing that “senior Hamas members managed the fighting on October 7 [from the area].”
“From this infrastructure, they were able to spread across Gaza. From the heart of Gaza City, senior Hamas officials were able to reach Shifa Hospital, leave there in an ambulance to travel south, and return to Shifa Hospital, enter the [tunnel] network, and go north to Rantisi Hospital,” he said.
Earlier Wednesday, the head of IDF Southern Command Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman said the military was at “another significant phase of the offensive, in new areas.”
“This offensive will continue and keep moving forward. It will continue with pressure against the enemy above ground and underground,” he said during a tour of the frontline in southern Gaza with the commander of the 98th Division, Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfus.
“We will continue to advance here and in additional areas in which we have not yet maneuvered,” Finkelman added.
Separately, the IDF released footage showing a strike on a Hamas cell preparing to launch explosive-laden drones at Israel, as part of efforts against the terror group’s aerial array.
The commander of the aerial array was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late October. Many other top members of the array were killed during the war, according to the IDF.
Also at the beginning of the fighting, the IDF said it destroyed Hamas’s “aerial detection capabilities.”
The IDF said it has also foiled attempts by Hamas to fire missiles at Israeli aircraft and rockets at troops operating in the Gaza Strip, as well as targeting drone launch sites on the roofs of civilian buildings.
Israel’s southern skies remained unusually quiet entering Thursday, without a single rocket attack from Gaza since 3:58 p.m. on Tuesday, a rare respite from the near-constant stream of sirens triggered by projectile fire from the Strip.
The period of calm came as Hamas’s leaders were in Egypt for talks revolving around a possible pause in the fighting and the release of hostages held by terror groups in the enclave.
Large fusillades of rockets which were fired regularly during the war’s early weeks have faded as Gazan terrorists have seemingly run low on ammunition and places to fire from as the Israeli military presses its ground offensive in the Strip, squeezing Hamas and its allies. On Wednesday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said mop-up operations were taking place in northern Gaza, indicating the army had essentially conquered half of the enclave.
Israel has continued pounding sites in Gaza, according to Palestinian reports, with a number of strikes reported in Rafah and elsewhere.
Hamas’s media office in the Gaza Strip said Wednesday afternoon that the death toll in Gaza since the start of the war had crossed 20,000.
The number cannot be independently confirmed, and it doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, whom an IDF spokesperson said earlier this month have been killed at a two-to-one ratio. Hamas’s toll also includes those killed in failed Palestinian rocket attacks.
Hamas says some 8,000 children and 6,200 women are among the dead. Hamas counts as children anyone below 18, while the IDF says many Hamas gunmen taking part in combat are minors in their late teens.
Israel says it is making an effort to avoid harm to civilians while fighting a terror group embedded within the civilian population. It has long accused Gaza-based terror groups of using Palestinians in the Strip as human shields, operating from sites, including schools and hospitals, which are supposed to be protected.
The war erupted when Hamas led some 3,000 terrorists in a devastating cross-border attack on October 7 that killed over 1,200 people, mostly civilians. At least 240 people of all ages were kidnapped and taken as hostages.
Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at destroying Hamas, removing it from control over Gaza, and releasing the hostages.
A week-long truce saw 105 hostages released until Hamas violated the terms of the ceasefire and fighting resumed. One of those released, a dual Russian-Israeli citizen, reportedly also managed to escape his guards but was eventually recaptured after spending four days trying to reach Israel.
Families of hostages have repeatedly voiced their concerns that Israel’s military campaign, which includes intense airstrikes, is endangering the lives of those in captivity. They have urged the government to seek freedom for the hostages via a broad deal with Hamas.
On Wednesday, the IDF announced that two soldiers had been killed in Gaza, raising the number of troops who have died since the ground operation in Gaza to 134.
They were named as Master Sgt. (res.) Uriel Cohen, 33, a logistics commander in the Givati Brigade, from Tzur Hadassah and Cpt. (res.) Lior Sivan, 32, from Beit Shemesh, an officer in the Harel Brigade’s 363 Battalion.
The army also said that an infantryman in the Givati Brigade’s Rotem Battalion was seriously wounded during battles in southern Gaza and was taken to a hospital for treatment.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.