JERUSALEM — Israel said on Sunday — the six-month mark of the ruinous conflict in Gaza — that it was withdrawing all but one brigade from the south of the enclave, describing the move as an opportunity for troops to rest and retool for the next chapter of the war.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that its 98th commando division, which consists of special ground forces, had “concluded its mission” in the city of Khan Younis and left Gaza “to recuperate and prepare for future operations.” The Nahal brigade, made up of ground troops stationed along a corridor that dies northern and southern Gaza, would continue to operate, the army said.
The drawdown announcement Sunday seemed to mirror a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza City earlier this year, after the army said it had dismantled Hamas brigades in the north and was pivoting to more targeted operations.
On a tour of the IDF’s Southern Command with U.S. ambassador Jack Lew, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said soldiers would now be preparing for the “mission in the Rafah area” along the Egyptian border, home to some 1.4 million displaced Palestinians.
Israel has insisted it must invade Rafah to finish off Hamas’s remaining battalions; the Biden administration has said Israeli officials must first come up with a plan to evacuate civilians in the line of fire.
“The war in Gaza continues, and we are far from stopping,” Herzi Halevi, IDF chief of the general staff, said in a statement Sunday. “We will not leave any Hamas brigades active — in any part of the Gaza Strip. We have plans and will act when we decide.”
Israel’s punishing military campaign, launched after Hamas killed some 1,200 people and abducted 253 more in a surprise attack on Oct. 7, has yet to fully achieve its key objectives. Most of Hamas’s senior leaders are still at large, and more than 100 Israeli hostages are still held by the group.
More than 33,000 people in Gaza have been killed in the fighting, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. The damage caused by Israel’s air and ground campaign in northern Gaza is so extensive that, in satellite views, whole city blocks resemble wastelands of powdered brown and gray.
Humanitarian officials say Israeli restrictions on aid have created famine conditions in northern Gaza more swiftly than anywhere they have worked in decades. Israel denies limiting aid and has accused humanitarian groups of exaggerating the hunger crisis.
But President Biden appeared last week to suggest for the first time that his administration’s near-unconditional support for Israel may be wavering, after IDF drone pilots hit a convoy of World Central Kitchen employees, killing six foreign nationals and one Palestinian. Nearly 200 aid workers have been killed during the conflict, the United Nations says.
Israel responded quickly to the American pressure, dismissing two officers for their role in the WCK attack — calling it a “serious failure” — and saying Israel would significantly increase the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, including by reopening a northern border crossing.
“We have been asking [Israel] for these concessions for months to avert the looming famine in Gaza. We need to see them implemented,” said Jamie McGoldrick, the United Nations’ humanitarian coordinator in the Palestinian territories.
COGAT, the Israeli agency that oversees the Palestinian territories, said 322 trucks crossed into Gaza on Sunday, the highest one-day figure since the start of the war. Aid officials say the enclave needs 500 trucks a day, at minimum, to stave off widespread starvation.
“The president and the White House have yet to lay out what consequences they have and they want to impose,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), among Biden’s fiercest domestic critics during the Gaza war, said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” He called on the administration to cut off military transfers to Israel until it ensures that people are “not starving to death … [are] able to get medical equipment, [and] kids are not having amputations without anesthesia.”
For Gazan civilians, the war seems endless. “We do not sleep or eat, and the sounds of airplanes surround us from everywhere,” said Muhammad al-Atrash, 44, a father of three, reached by phone Sunday in the southern city of Rafah.
“Our lives are not humane.”
The drawdown of troops from the north, and now from Khan Younis, is an indication that the IDF believes it has accomplished most of its major goals in the area, experts said, but could still return if militants come back.
“Obviously Israel is not saying that it is going out of Gaza, shutting the gates without any intention to go back, under any circumstances. It is saying the opposite, that it will retain operational freedom,” said Eran Etzion, former deputy head of Israel’s National Security Council.
“We are talking about a very small place,” said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies. “When we have the intelligence, the forces are deployed along the border and it’s a matter of minutes to reach the places we want to reach.”
A recent standoff between the IDF and Hamas militants in and around Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital underscored how quickly armed groups are able to regroup in a security vacuum — and how destructive even the most “targeted” operations can become.
Israeli troops recounted fierce battles against Hamas militants, who they said barricaded themselves inside the complex. Humanitarian officials and civilians trapped in the area described two weeks of terror, during which at least 21 patients died inside the hospital as fighting raged around them. Gaza’s largest hospital was reduced to ruins.
As Israeli troops pulled out of the south, CIA chief William J. Burns was in Cairo on Sunday for a new round of talks over a potential cease-fire deal, a sign that diplomatic momentum was picking up again, according to a former Egyptian official familiar with the negotiations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject.
Last week, Biden called Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi and the emir of Qatar — whose countries are key interlocutors with Hamas — to urge them to put more pressure on the militant group to reach a deal.
“The problem is Sinwar is in Gaza and the other [Hamas leaders] are in Qatar,” the former Egyptian official said, referring to Hamas leader Yehiya Sinwar, widely believed to be hiding in tunnels below Gaza. “The decision comes from Sinwar.”
Israeli officials believe Sinwar and the group’s other top officials are in the Rafah area, possibly using the remaining Israeli captives as human shields.
“Hamas, now they have the golden card: the hostages,” the former Egyptian official said. “But they’re short on ammunition, rockets and drones and are now fighting guerrilla warfare that is not sustainable.”
Pressure for a deal is also mounting in Israel, where thousands of demonstrators were back on the streets Saturday night, calling for fresh elections. Among the crowd were family members of hostages, who accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of dragging out the negotiations to retain his hold on power.
“Time is of the essence,” a group representing the hostage families said in a statement, “leaving no choice but to bring them all back now!”
The World Health Organization released footage of a “completely nonfunctional” al-Shifa Hospital on April 6, after its team visited the facility. (Video: World Health Organization)
Hauslohner reported from Washington, Parker from Cairo, Masih from Seoul and Hassan and Harb from London. Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
