The IDF is close to defeating Hamas in Khan Yunis, with some estimates that the terror group’s ability to fight as an effective collective force could be broken within weeks or less.
As matters stand, close to three of the four Khan Yunis battalions (all four battalions originally making up around 4,500 fighters) are already nearly beaten.
The northern and eastern Khan Yunis battalions are already beaten according to the IDF, while the southern battalion is close to being taken apart.
Even the western Khan Yunis battalion which was seen as the toughest remaining Hamas force in Gaza until last week has shown signs in recent days of falling apart.
Hamas’s deficit by numbers
Of the 4,500 original Hamas fighters, 2,700 have been killed, over 1,000 in close combat and over 1,700 by tank, artillery, or aerial attacks.
Besides attacks on Hamas’s terror forces, the IDF has struck 3,320 targets and 400 tunnel shafts in Khan Yunis, 150 of which it has destroyed.
This means that two-thirds of Hamas’s Khan Yunis forces have been killed, as well as many other wounded, leaving Hamas forces in the southern “capital” of Gaza even more dilapidated than the terror group is as a whole for the entire Gaza Strip where the percentage of killed is 20-30% and even the percentage of out of commission forces is 48-60%.
All of this progress is despite the fact that the IDF only started invading Khan Yunis in early December, and spent about a month in late December-early January with slower progress.
New progress in Khan Yunis in general, and especially in western Khan Yunis in the last week was made possible partially by a revolutionary change in IDF strategy for confronting the tunnel threat.
When IDF Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfus presented his strategy to a closed group of media outlets earlier in the battle for Khan Yunis, the strategy was to first win the battle above ground, and then to slowly have engineering crews blow up Hamas’s underground tunnels as the military found and inspected them.
Often only robots, and at most a small number of soldiers would enter many tunnels.
The original idea was to reduce the dangers to IDF forces of walking into an underground trap.
Later, the IDF shifted to attacking Hamas simultaneously both above and below ground, including sending in full platoons of dozens of IDF forces all at once into the tunnels to combat Hamas terrorists.
Although the IDF fought Hamas in tunnels in northern Gaza and the US has fought adversaries in tunnels in other parts of the world, the concept and implementation of sending large forces into tunnels at the same time as fighting in those areas above ground has not been done before according to the IDF.
These new tactics helped the IDF’s 98th Division raid an underground tunnel located under the Bani Suheila cemetery in the heart of Khan Yunis,.
IDF forces not only found explosives, sliding doors, and significant numbers of Hamas terrorists inside, but they also unearthed the office of the eastern Battalion commander from the Khan Yunis Brigade, from where he helped direct the October 7 attacks.
In addition, troops found operation rooms, a battalion combat war room, and bedrooms of senior officials of the Hamas terrorist organization.
The tunnel is part of an underground labyrinth dug by Hamas terrorists which runs a full kilometer long, some 20 meters deep, and contains several complexes, the IDF noted.
During this operation, the IDF also arrested key Hamas officials who are providing critical new intelligence to the military
After inspecting the tunnel, IDF engineering forces destroyed it.
Despite all of these achievements, IDF sources are unsure if they will catch Hamas’s leadership and the Israeli hostages they are holding within Khan Yunis.
A rising number of IDF officials believe that portions of Hamas’s leadership and their hostages may have fled to Rafah, where there are close to 1.5 million Palestinian civilians to hide among.
Additionally, another 105,000 Palestinian civilians recently left Khan Yunis for other safe zones, with around 20,000-30,000 remaining in Khan Yunis.
There are also suspicions that portions of Hamas’s leadership may be hiding with hostages in Khan Yunis safe zones or other safe zones.
The IDF also explained that its experience in Khan Yunis has helped thoroughly categorize Hamas tunnels as strategic-top leadership, battalion-mid-organizational level, and ambush-tactical.
These categories have also helped treat different kinds of tunnels using different IDF tactics.
For example, the IDF in Khan Yunis moved through the full one-kilometer tunnel in a similar time that above ground, it might have only moved a few hundred meters, while in other tunnels, the IDF still might have just blown up.
On the home front, at around 4:50 p.m. on Monday, rocket sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and across central Israel for the first time in three weeks.
Some 11 rockets were fired from southern Khan Yunis, 6 of which were intercepted, according to Hebrew media.
Magen David Adom (MDA) said a car in Rishon Lezion was hit, though no casualties or injuries were reported.
The car hit by rocket debris is owned by Israeli celebrity Guy Geor, who was not in his vehicle at the moment of the barrage.
In addition, the Police Spokesperson said there were no casualties or injuries throughout the area.
Despite the rocket salvo, the pace of Hamas rocket fire has plummeted from hundreds per day in October to 50-70 at a later stage in the war, to dozens last month, to single digits or even zero on many days.
In the North, IAF jets again targeted and destroyed Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon less than two hours after the previous attack, the IDF Spokesperson Unit said on Monday.
As part of the attack, significant aspects of the terrorist infrastructure of the organization were destroyed, along with observation posts in the Markaba, A-Taiba, and Maroun el-Ras areas.
Throughout the day, a number of both rocket and anti-tank missile launches were detected from Lebanese territory to the north in multiple rounds.
In response, IDF forces attacked the sources of the fire along with other areas in Lebanese territory, the IDF said.
Earlier on Monday, the IDF said it attacked military buildings being used by Hezbollah terrorists in the Yaroun region of southern Lebanon.
In northern Gaza, the IDF is expected to ramp up its military presence over the upcoming weeks to counter attempts by Hamas to re-establish itself in the area as Israel’s focus moved to the south since December-January, Army Radio reported and the Jerusalem Post confirmed.
The Israeli military plans to carry out several divisional raids in the area, some considered extensive, in areas Hamas has targeted in its efforts to reinstate itself in Gaza’s northern towns.
Around 2,000 Hamas fighters are still believed to be in northern Gaza among around 200,000 civilians and are said to be trying to reconstitute themselves as a force while Israel’s government lags in implementing its strategy for transitioning northern Gaza into a post-Hamas area.
Some IDF sources dispute attributing the problems to the government dragging its feet, saying that the issue is more tactical, relating to always evolving intelligence and the need to do periodic clean-ups even in areas where Hamas seemed mostly beaten.
However, it was somewhat embarrassing for the IDF to have to start returning more forces to northern Gaza only a few weeks after loudly releasing large numbers of reservists for what was supposed to be a period of months off.
Tal Spungin contributed to this report.
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