As the Israeli military prepares to launch another offensive, the number of its soldiers in southern Gaza has reached an all-time low since the start of the war in the Middle East.
Ground forces in the city of Khan Younis are being pulled out of the region after extensive destruction. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have not ceased their intense attacks as they seek to eliminate the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which wreaked havoc on the Jewish state with a massacre in October.
In an April 7 statement, the IDF declared that the work of the 98th division in the region had been “concluded,” hence the withdrawing of forces there. The announcement added that Israeli troops are being removed in order to “recuperate and prepare for future operations.”
Initially, the move was unclear as to how it pertains to an anticipated attack on the Palestinian city of Rafah. However, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that “there is a date” for this invasion, without providing additional details. The IDF’s Nahal brigade and 162nd division remain in the Gaza Strip.
As April 7 marked six months since the Hamas attack on Israeli towns, sparking the start of the war, the Jewish state is reportedly re-entering truce talks based in Qatar. The military has previously resisted the demands of Hamas even as nations including Egypt and the United States have consistently urged for a ceasefire and peace deals.
While occupying Khan Yunis, Israeli military forces “destroyed 3 offensive terrorist tunnels that were under surveillance in recent years,” according to an April 6 message shared on the IDF X page. The three targets were uncovered between 2013 and 2019.
During activity in Khan Yunis, our forces located and destroyed 3 offensive terrorist tunnels that were under surveillance in recent years.
🔴 Tunnel 1 was uncovered about a decade ago. It was struck during the 2021 Operation "Guardian of the Walls" and again at the beginning of…
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) April 6, 2024
The first tunnel was attacked in an operation called “Guardian of the Walls” in 2021, again at the start of the ongoing war in 2023 and “finally destroyed” in the past week. The second tunnel was partially destroyed years ago, with “another section of it” attacked in the past several weeks. Similarly, the third tunnel was hit recently, after having been struck throughout the war and the portion that falls “into Israeli territory was neutralized.”
The withdrawal from Khan Yunis comes days after President Joe Biden told Netanyahu via a phone conversation that the United States will only continue supporting Israel if the nation takes better care to avoid mass casualties. Following the call, the White House explained that Biden insisted Netanyahu “announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering and the safety of aid workers.”
Since the massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed more than a thousand Israelis and held hundreds more hostage, thousands of Palestinians have been killed in counter offenses and displaced from their homes in the Gaza Strip.
