Yedioth Ahronoth: Hamas is recovering areas in Gaza and our army is clinging to Rafah
Israeli military analyst Yoav Zitun said that Hamas has begun to regain control of areas left unguarded in Gaza and is using guerrilla warfare in its resistance to the Israeli army.
He added – in an analysis published by Yedioth Ahronoth – that Hamas’ recapture of these areas comes at a time when the Israeli army is making its way to the city of Rafah, in the far south of the Strip, while the United States prevents it from arms.
While the eyes of the world and Israel are focused on Rafah, where the Israeli army has begun a limited and targeted ground operation in the east, a new reality is taking shape in another part of Gaza that reflects a military revival of Hamas and the entrenchment of the Israeli army beyond the borders of the Strip.
The Israeli army recently completed the construction of four large outposts along the Netzarim corridor for a relatively comfortable and permanent stay for hundreds of soldiers, who now belong to two reserve brigades, one of which is responsible, albeit on a small scale, for the new port that the US military is building in Gaza.
The analysis revealed that Israeli soldiers were also deployed in temporary outposts across an unspecified strip of land about 3 kilometers wide.
In the middle of the fence is a new, military-paved highway that starts at Crossing 96 near the border near Kibbutz Be’eri.
The road ends at a forward post and a nearby beach checkpoint where the Americans will soon finish building a small port, they said was built to receive humanitarian aid from the sea, reducing Hamas of aid trucks between the two separate parts of the Strip.
Zitun said, “the IDF had monitored a crowd of hundreds of Hamas supporters from several areas in the Gaza Strip to reinforce the group’s central town brigades, which the IDF hasn’t yet dealt with”.
The Israeli analyst said that these elements represent the Nuseirat and Bureij brigades, where Hamas has been preparing ambushes and several explosive fields in recent weeks in anticipation of the possible arrival of army brigades.
The Israeli army is preparing for another frightening scenario, which is the expectation that thousands of civilians will rush from Gaza towards the Netzarim axis in order to return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip, he said.
According to Yedioth Ahronoth’s analysis, Israeli officers have made contingency plans in the event of this scenario, which Hamas would consider another victory in the war as hundreds of soldiers face thousands of Gazan civilians in broad daylight, which Zitun considers a situation that is a nightmare and spreads negative propaganda to the public.
Yedioth Ahronoth quoted official military reports, based on testimonies from soldiers carrying out the fortification mission in the Netzarim axis, that Hamas attacks Israeli forces daily with mortar shells, which prevent about a million Palestinians from returning to the northern Gaza Strip.
