Israel's forces are attacking a major Hamas stronghold, according to security officials, in a bid to catch or kill the masterminds of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack that ignited the war in Gaza.
“What happened in Gaza City is happening now in Khan Younis … with impressive results,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Tuesday. “The leaders of Hamas now well understand that nobody is coming to save them — not the Iranians and not Hezbollah.”
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The fighting, which resumed on Friday after the collapse of a weeklong truce, has renewed a searing ordeal for Palestinian civilians caught in the crossfire while putting pressure on Israeli strategists to develop a plan to root Hamas out of its vast tunnel network, a task that they may tackle with unconventional measures, such as the flooding of the subterranean fortifications. Above ground, the Israeli soldiers who reached the city Monday evening have encountered some of the stiffest fighting of the war.
“We are in the most intense day since the start of the invasion — in terms of the number of killed terrorists, the number of battles, and the volume of fire brought to bear by ground and air forces,” IDF Southern Command Chief Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman said. “We intend to continue to attack and to deepen our achievements.”
Hamas has lost roughly 5,000 fighters, according to Israeli military officials who acknowledged to local press that twice as many Palestinian civilians have been killed. Hamas retains a fighting force about 20,000-strong, according to the Jerusalem Post, but that calculation assumes that Hamas has lost 10,000 people from its pre-war force.
“I’m not saying it’s not bad that we have a ratio of 2-1,” an unnamed official told the Times of Israel. “Hopefully, [the ratio] will be much lower.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Israel last week that this phase of the war must not involve “the massive loss of civilian life and displacement” that occurred in northern Gaza prior to the ceasefire. Yet U.S. officials have avoided offering an assessment on Israel’s conduct over the last several days.
“We are four or five days into this campaign in the south; it’s just started again after the pause,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Tuesday. “It’s too early to make, I think, overall assessments about how it’s going, but certainly, I know for civilians on the ground, conditions are incredibly difficult.”
The combination of civilian casualties and the high number of remaining Hamas fighters is likely to necessitate creative strategies for attacking Hamas in the tunnels, including the flooding tactic.
“The Israelis are trying to figure out how to drop fewer bombs, and one way to do this would be to try this [flooding] tactic,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies Senior Vice President Jonathan Schanzer said. “But if it ends up destroying a lot of buildings, then you have the same result with a lot of ordnance. And I think that’s part of the calculus that’s being weighed at the moment.”
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The top Israel Defense Forces general acknowledged that his team is considering a variety of countermeasures.
“We have various ways. I won’t talk about specifics, but they include explosives to destroy and other means to prevent Hamas operatives from using the tunnels to harm our soldiers,” IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said when asked about the possible flooding. “Therefore, any means which give us an advantage over the enemy that [uses the tunnels], deprives it of this asset, is a means that we are evaluating using. This is a good idea, but I won’t comment on its specifics.”