The Israeli army’s departure from southern Gaza over the weekend has left the territory with no main battlefield for the primary time since a short truce with Hamas in November, elevating hopes that the 2 sides may attain one other cease-fire.
Analysts say the redeployment implies that the warfare is coming into a brand new part, one by which Israeli forces, primarily stationed alongside Gaza’s borders, will principally mount transient raids into the territory earlier than retreating to Israel, quite than prolonged floor maneuvers involving massive numbers of troops.
By withdrawing with out both capturing Hamas’s final main stronghold, Rafah, or empowering another Palestinian management, Israel has left behind an influence vacuum by which Hamas may regroup and re-emerge as a army pressure throughout a lot of the territory.
That probability has prompted expectations that Israel will proceed to mount small-scale operations throughout Gaza to forestall Hamas’s resurgence, extending the warfare for months to come back. That technique may occupy a center floor between reaching an enduring truce with Hamas and advancing in pressure into Rafah.
The Israeli army mentioned on Sunday that its 98th Division had left Khan Younis in southern Gaza so as “to recuperate and put together for future operations.” That leaves no Israeli troops actively maneuvering in southern Gaza, in line with two officers briefed on the matter who weren’t approved to talk publicly about it.
The drawdown of troops continues a course of that started in January and leaves the equal of a single brigade in all of Gaza, or fewer than 5,000 troops — down from roughly 50,000 on the top of the warfare in December.
The remaining troops inside Gaza are principally guarding a buffer zone that Israel has created by destroying Palestinian buildings alongside the border, or positioned alongside a slender land hall that splits northern Gaza, together with Gaza Metropolis, from the remainder of the territory.
Two journalists for The New York Instances traveled down the hall final week, observing the way it features as a provide street for troops, a barrier to displaced Gazans trying to maneuver again to north Gaza, and a possible launchpad for future Israeli army operations in northern and central Gaza.
The Israeli management painted the withdrawal as an indication of Israel’s progress on the battlefield, and one thing it had lengthy predicted. Israeli officers have mentioned that, having routed Hamas, their military would finally transfer most of its troops again to the strip’s perimeter and conduct transient assaults on particular targets, as a substitute of finishing up large-scale floor maneuvers throughout large areas.
The 98th Division’s operations in southern Gaza have been “extraordinarily spectacular,” the Israeli protection minister, Yoav Gallant, mentioned in an announcement. “Their actions enabled the dismantling of Hamas as a functioning army unit on this space,” he added.
To others, the drawdown constitutes an Israeli failure. Regardless of mounting a marketing campaign that native authorities say has killed greater than 33,000 and left Gaza in ruins and getting ready to famine, Israel is leaving many of the strip with out having achieved the targets it set for itself after Hamas raided Israel on Oct. 7, setting off the warfare.
Hamas’s most senior leaders are nonetheless alive; a number of thousand Hamas fighters are nonetheless at massive; and roughly half of the hostages taken on Oct. 7 are nonetheless in Gaza. Israel’s withdrawal has left most of Gaza with no purposeful administration, and the void may but be stuffed as soon as extra by Hamas.
“Within the six months of warfare, we failed to realize even a single one of many goals,” wrote Nahum Barnea, a outstanding Israeli commentator, in a column on Monday for the centrist Yediot Ahronot. “We didn’t destroy Hamas,” he added.
To rout Hamas, Israel would wish to comply with by means of on its promise to advance on Rafah, the southern metropolis the place most of its remaining fighters and army leaders are regarded as hiding.
“That can occur,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned in a video assertion launched on Monday, including {that a} date had been set for the offensive, which he didn’t reveal.
Mr. Gallant mentioned on Sunday that the army was getting ready for “follow-up missions” that included “the Rafah space. We are going to attain some extent when Hamas not controls the Gaza Strip and doesn’t perform as a army framework that poses a risk to the residents of the state of Israel.”
Mr. Netanyahu faces intense stress to proceed with the Rafah operation from far-right members of his ruling coalition, who’ve threatened to break down the federal government if he calls it off, prompting elections that the prime minister may lose.
However Mr. Netanyahu is underneath rising worldwide stress, together with from President Biden, to name off the Rafah operation as a result of it will threat widespread hurt to the a couple of million civilians who’ve fled to the town because the warfare started.
He additionally faces a rising home backlash from opponents who imagine he ought to safe the swift launch of the remaining hostages, even when it comes at the price of conserving Hamas in energy.
The withdrawal from southern Gaza appeared on Monday to have given contemporary momentum to negotiations to realize a cease-fire and an change of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners held inside Israel. Negotiations have stalled for months, largely as a result of Israel doesn’t wish to comply with a truce that enables Hamas to stay answerable for any a part of Gaza, whereas Hamas is cautious of a deal that doesn’t guarantee its long-term survival.
However after Israel redeployed its troops, a number of Israeli politicians, together with Mr. Gallant, mentioned they believed a deal could possibly be struck, as mediators met in Cairo to attempt to attain a compromise.
Hamas didn’t launch any official statements on Monday about the potential for a deal, however on Sunday it restated a number of positions that Israel is unlikely to comply with, together with the Israeli military’s full withdrawal from the territory.
Abu Bakr Bashir, Gabby Sobelman, Myra Noveck and Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.
