IDF troops operate in the Gaza Strip, in an image released on July 10, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)
Posted on 07/16/2024 10:35:48 AM PDT by SJackson
Military assesses it will take months to locate all tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border, but Rafah Brigade mostly dismantled; half of terror group’s military leadership killed
IDF troops operate in the Gaza Strip, in an image released on July 10, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)
The Israel Defense Forces increasingly believes that Muhammad Deif, the commander of Hamas’s military wing, was killed in an airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, although as of Tuesday, it was still awaiting final confirmation before making a public announcement.
The IDF believed that its intelligence indicating that Deif arrived at a compound belonging to Rafa’a Salameh, the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, was highly accurate, and that the pair were together in the building that was targeted with several heavy munitions.
Salameh was killed in the strike, the IDF announced Sunday after obtaining final confirmation on the matter. It has yet to receive the same kind of information on Deif, and if he was dead, Hamas would attempt to hide the truth for some time.
According to IDF assessments described to The Times of Israel, military pressure exerted on Hamas caused Deif to venture out from the underground tunnels where he was thought to be hiding, and join Salameh, who had been at the compound for several weeks.
The military has also assessed that a very small number of civilians were harmed in the attack, despite its proximity to tent camps for displaced Palestinians in the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone.
Deif was one of the chief architects of the October 7 massacre in southern Israel, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists broke through the border, killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. He has been one of the figures most wanted by Israel since 1995 for his involvement in the planning and execution of many terror attacks, including bus bombings in the 1990s and early 2000s.
The head of Hamas’s military wing Muhammad Deif (left) and Rafa’a Salameh, the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, in an undated photo.
Saturday’s strike was Israel’s eighth attempt to eliminate the shadowy terror leader, who survived multiple attempts on his life between 2001 and 2021. He was seriously injured in two of them.
Deif would be the most senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip to be slain by Israel amid the ongoing war, after his deputy, Marwan Issa, was killed in an airstrike in March. Hamas’s deputy political leader, Salah al-Arouri, was assassinated by Israel in an airstrike in Lebanon’s capital Beirut in January.
IDF says Hamas struggling to keep up with operations Meanwhile, on Tuesday, IDF sources said the war against Hamas in Gaza was not going to last indefinitely.
Palestinians look at a huge crater in the sand following an Israeli military strike near the city of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip on July 13, 2024. (Bashar Taleb/AFP)
The military said it was “taking advantage of every minute” in Gaza to continue operations until a potential hostage deal, and was prepared to contend with the consequences of a truce with Hamas, which may include the IDF being forced to withdraw entirely from the Strip temporarily.
Regardless of a hostage deal, low-intensity operations against the terror group would likely continue for a long period, but there is an end in sight, military sources said, as the IDF increasingly sees Hamas struggling to fight back.
The IDF has in recent months seen Hamas operatives and commanders more and more leave the terror group’s hideout tunnels in the Gaza Strip, and instead position command centers, staging grounds and even makeshift weapons manufacturing within civilian shelters.
In recent weeks, more than 50 airstrikes have been carried out against Hamas positions embedded within schools, hospitals and other civilian sites used as shelters for Palestinian civilians, the IDF said.
One such strike took place on Tuesday, with the IDF saying it struck a group of Hamas operatives gathered at a United Nations-run school in the central Gaza Strip.
People gather to search the rubble of a collapsed building in the aftermath of an Israeli strike on what the IDF says were Hamas operatives hiding in the Al-Jaouni UNRWA school in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, July 6, 2024. (Eyad Baba / AFP)
According to military assessments, Hamas operatives have been struggling to remain inside tunnels for such a long period — nine months since the onset of the war — and have therefore been moving to aboveground sites, while hiding among civilians.
The IDF assessments also claim that Hamas is suffering from severe morale issues as the fighting goes on, and thousands are fleeing army operations and choosing not to fight.
At the same time, the terror group has also been running into weapon shortages. The IDF recently recovered a document listing the current inventory of the Shejaiya Battalion, according to which it had lost more than two-thirds of its members, and was running low on RPGs, assault rifles and explosives.
The terror group has been described by the IDF as in “survival mode” in recent months, and not the same military organization as it was before October 7.
Still, the IDF has also assessed that Hamas maintains the capability to attack troops in Gaza and launch rockets on Israel, including long-range fire on Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.
But the IDF believes that Hamas does not possess any major rocket manufacturing capabilities anymore, after its main factories were destroyed in earlier operations. The terror group can produce some weapons, although at a much lower quality, according to the assessments.
Trails of rockets fired towards Israel from the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, January 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
The military said it has been tracking such attempts and has targeted new manufacturing sites. In a recent operation, commandos raided UNRWA’s headquarters in Gaza City after receiving indications that Hamas was building explosive-laden drones to launch at troops. At least one such drone was found in the raid.
Also at the UNRWA headquarters, the IDF said it found evidence of Hamas recruiting new operatives. These fresh recruits are also believed by the military to be of much lower quality than its existing fighters.
Separately, the IDF said Tuesday that around half of Hamas’s military wing leadership had been confirmed killed so far amid the fighting. Those who remained included the commanders of the Rafah and Gaza City brigades, and the head of the terror group’s intelligence, operations, manufacturing, and home front divisions.
The IDF said it has been seeking to kill Hamas’s top commanders, as well as members who are considered “sources of knowledge” in the fields of engineering, chemistry and electronics, which would help the terror group rebuild.
A Hamas drone found by IDF troops at UNRWA’s headquarters in Gaza City, in a handout photo published July 12, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces) Meanwhile, in the past two weeks, more than 1,000 terror operatives have been killed across Gaza, according to the military.
Rafah operation winding down, but tunnels will take months to locate
According to IDF assessments described to The Times of Israel on Tuesday, the military believes it will take many more months to complete the search for Hamas’s cross-border smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt frontier. So far, around 25 tunnels have been located.
Combat engineers have been meticulously sweeping the entire Gaza-Egypt border area in Rafah, while expanding the so-called Philadelphi Route by demolishing structures within about 800 meters.
Many of the Hamas tunnels in the Philadelphi Route area, including tunnels found within the Rafah Crossing area, go deep into the Strip’s southernmost city, according to the IDF.
The effort comes as the intensive stage of the offensive in Rafah, which was launched in early May, is coming to an end.
The IDF is expected to continue working on locating the tunnels in Rafah, alongside other targeted raids across Gaza, until, in the event of a hostage deal, it may be required to withdraw from the Strip.
A view of southern Gaza’s Rafah from the Philadelphi Corridor on the border with Egypt, July 16, 2024. (Emanuel Fabian/Times of Israel)
Meanwhile, Hamas’s Rafah Brigade is considered to be mostly dismantled, according to the IDF’s fresh assessments, with all four of its battalions at a low level of competency, some slightly more than others.
During the Rafah operation, the IDF encountered entire neighborhoods that were booby-trapped by Hamas, and not just single buildings as it had seen in other parts of the Strip.
This, according to the IDF, was aimed at preventing troops from reaching tunnels beneath such buildings. In some cases, dozens of buildings were destroyed in order for the IDF to reach a hidden tunnel network.
The IDF has said it isn’t counting each meter of tunnels it has destroyed, but rather is focusing on the significant underground sites used by Hamas, such as command and control centers for senior officers in the terror group, weapon manufacturing sites and communication centers.
The IDF has also been working to locate Hamas’s attack tunnels, which approach the Israeli border, as well as tunnel junctions that connect between various underground networks in the Strip.
This image from video released by the IDF on June 5, 2024, shows a Hamas smuggling tunnel in southern Gaza’s Rafah. (Israel Defense Forces)
IDF probing deadly strike in Khan Younis
Separately on Tuesday, the IDF said it carried out a drone strike on a company commander in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s naval force, in western Khan Younis.
According to Hamas health officials, 17 people were killed and another 26 were wounded in the strike, which according to reports hit a fuel station.
The IDF said it was “looking into the reports stating that several civilians were injured as a result of the strike.”
Earlier Tuesday, three rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip at Sderot and nearby towns.
According to local authorities, two struck open areas, and the third was intercepted. There were no reports of damage or injuries.
Let’s make Hamas un-survive!
Repeat after me:
“There are no civilians in Gaza. Not a single one.”
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