A hundred days after leaving, Division 98 returns for another round in Khan Yunis, formerly the Hamas government center in the southern Gaza Strip. Armoured forces began a ground maneuver into the eastern neighbourhoods of the city bordering Israel (including the towns of Absan al-Kabir, Absan al-Your, and Khirbet Ahza). At the same time, a series of IDF air strikes in the area have been reported, killing dozens of people.
This maneuver coincides with the IDF’s recent evacuation announcements in the Gaza Strip, in which it announced the reduction of the humanitarian zone in western Khan Yunis (an area to which most of the residents of Rafah, and in fact most of the residents of the Gaza Strip, have gone during the past two months and the 162nd Division’s maneuver in Rafah), in a way that would require the movement of hundreds of thousands of civilians (Tens of thousands have already begun to evacuate during the day.) This is due to the missile launches carried out from these areas into Israeli territory in recent weeks; at the same time, senior Hamas figures are known to take refuge in the humanitarian zone – when the attack carried out a week and a half ago during which the brigade commander Khan Yunis Rafe Salameh and head of Hamas’ military wing, Muhammad Def, took place in the refugee camp.
Why is the IDF coming back to the city for the second time? The main goal is to harm Hamas’ efforts in the region, as well as killing as many terrorists as possible who were hiding the previous time, and have left their hiding places for now. The victory against Hamas will not come with a decisive blow, but with a prolonged succession of injuries the attempts to rehabilitate, and the exhaustion and destruction of the fighting force of the terrorist organization. The IDF proves that it can fight for a long time and return again and again to the places it was in already, without leaving the terrorist organizations a safe place.