The Israeli military on Friday ordered residents in the central Gaza Strip to move immediately further south, as its troops continue their slow advance into the enclave and prospects of an imminent victory against Hamas appear dim.
The call to evacuate Al Bureij — an area in central Gaza where Israel has yet to focus its offensive — comes as the military operates in the northern Gaza Strip and has been engaged in heavy fighting in recent weeks in and around the southern city of Khan. Younis.
Previous evacuation
boundary zone
New evacuation
boundary zone
New evacuation
boundary zone
Previous evacuation
boundary zone
“Our forces continue to strengthen ground operations in northern and southern Gaza,” said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israeli military, on Thursday evening.
Israel claims it has achieved operational control over some areas in the north, but the grinding progress leads some prominent Israeli military analysts and political commentators to point to a widening gap between the reality on the ground and the rhetoric of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who pledged Wednesday that the war “will continue until Hamas is eliminated – until victory.”
As the death toll in Gaza mounts and civilians are pushed into a tiny southern corner of the enclave, Israel is under increasing pressure from the United States and other countries to slow its operations and move to a less intensive phase of fighting in the coming week.
The military’s goal is to topple Hamas’ rule in Gaza, destroy or degrade its military capabilities to the point it no longer poses a threat to Israel and return the approximately 120 hostages remaining in Gaza.
But top Hamas leaders have so far eluded capture, and Gaza’s armed groups have continued to fire rockets into Israel, including two barrages that reached Tel Aviv and its environs this week.
Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, dismissed Mr. Netanyahu’s declarations about eliminating Hamas as “stupid” and “absurd propaganda.”
“Netanyahu raised the slogan of victory and the elimination of Hamas,” said Mr. Rishq in a statement on Friday. He added: “It is an illusion and a mirage that cannot be achieved, and it will fall because of the resilience of our people.”
Political commentators and some military experts are lowering expectations for a quick and decisive victory.
“No one should think that there will be a situation where we put a flag on top of a hill and say ‘OK, we won, and now Gaza will be peaceful and safe,’ It will not happen,” said Gabi Siboni, a colonel in the reserves and a fellow at the conservative-leaning Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. “The reality is that we will be fighting in Gaza for years to come.”
Others echoed that assessment. “There will be no ‘victory picture,'” Ben Caspit, a political columnist and longtime critic of Mr. Netanyahu, wrote in the Maariv newspaper on Friday. He added: “The realization that the ‘removal’ of Hamas is an unrealistic short-term goal is creeping in.”
Israel has used thousands of airstrikes, heavy bombs and artillery as it tries to dismantle Hamas and its infrastructure, and the Gaza Health Ministry said on Thursday that more than 20,000 people had died in Gaza.
In the first six weeks of the war, it routinely used 2,000-pound bombs — some of its largest and most destructive — in areas it designated safe for civilians, according to an analysis of visual evidence by The New York Times. While bombs of that size are used by some Western militaries, munitions experts say US forces rarely drop them in densely populated areas.
Gazans who left their homes and moved south say they are not safe there and there are no areas off limits to Israeli bombing. Israel called on Friday for people to leave Al Bureij for shelters in Deir al-Balah, which is a short distance south in central Gaza.
“It’s not safe here either,” said Nevin Muhaisen, 35, a teacher from northern Gaza who moved to Deir al-Balah early in the war and shares an apartment with about 30 members of his extended family, in via WhatsApp message. “I kept hearing explosions in the coastal part of the city and in Khan Younis,” he added.
Abu Bakr Bashir contributed reporting.
