In the north of the Gaza Strip, “terrorists are still operating sporadically and without command,” Israeli army spokesman General Daniel Hagari told a news conference on Sunday as the war entered its fourth month.
But “henceforth [l’armée se concentre] Eliminating Hamas in the center and south of this critical coastal region, the official added.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after the movement launched an unprecedented offensive from Gaza in the country's south on October 7 and led to the deaths of some 1,140 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally. Based on the latest official Israeli statistics.
250 people were kidnapped in the attack and taken as hostages to Gaza. About a hundred of them were released during a ceasefire in late November.
Since October 7, Israel has relentlessly shelled the Gaza Strip, which began a ground offensive on October 27. According to a recent report by the Hamas Health Ministry released on Saturday, 22,722 people were killed in these military operations, most of them women and children.
“We're going to do it differently” in the center and south of the Gaza Strip than in the north, General Hagari announced without elaborating on the method.
“The refugee camps in central Gaza are overcrowded and full of terrorists,” he said, referring to those in Nusayrat, al-Burij, al-Maqassi and Deir el-Balah.
In the south, the large urban area “Khan Yunus is an underground city with many branching tunnels. It takes time and there are no shortcuts in the fight against terrorism,” he added.
“Three months ago, Hamas committed a terrible massacre [et] My government ordered [l’armée] “Go to war to eliminate Hamas, bring back our hostages, and ensure that Gaza will never again be a threat to Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement released in the evening.
“We must not end the war before achieving these objectives,” he added.
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