(SMH & The Age, 3/1/2024)
Jerusalem: Israeli aircraft and tanks have stepped up strikes in southern Gaza, residents said, after its military announced plans to pull back some troops, a move the US said signalled a gradual shift to lower intensity operations in the north of the enclave.
Israel says the war in Gaza, which has reduced much of the territory to rubble, killing thousands and plunging its 2.3 million people into a humanitarian disaster, has many months to go.
But it signalled a new phase in its offensive, with an Israeli official saying the military would draw down forces inside Gaza this month and shift to a months-long phase of more localised “mopping up” operations.
The official said toppling the Islamist faction remained an objective of the offensive in the Palestinian enclave, and that some of the five brigades withdrawn would prepare for a possible flare-up of a second front against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
A US official said the decision appeared to indicate the start of a shift to lower-intensity operations in the north of the Palestinian enclave. Washington has been urging Israel to reduce the intensity of its military operation, amidst international calls for a ceasefire as the death toll passed 20,000 last week.
But residents said Israeli planes and tanks stepped up bombardment of the eastern and northern areas of Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Tuesday.
“My wish for 2024 is not to die … Our childhood is gone. There is no bathroom, no food and no water. Only tents,” 11-year-old Layan Harara said in Gaza’s Rafah. In the city’s zoo, people camped out between cages holding starving animals.
The hints at a lowered tempo in northern Gaza came as the US Navy announced that the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier was returning to its home port in Virginia after being to deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean following the outbreak of hostilities.
Asked by reporters about a troop reduction, Israel’s military spokesperson said two reservist brigades would be released this week.
Since launching the war in retaliation for the cross-border Hamas rampage of October 7, Israeli officials have said they would wage it in three main stages. The first was intense shelling to clear access routes for ground forces and encourage civilians to evacuate. The second was the invasion that began on October 27.
With tanks and troops having now overrun much of the Gaza Strip, largely asserting control despite Palestinian gunmen continuing their ambushes from hidden tunnels and bunkers, the military is moving to the third stage, said the official, who could not be named given the sensitivity of the issue.
“This will take six months at least, and involve intense mopping-up missions against the terrorists. No one is talking about doves of peace being flown from Shajaia,” the official told Reuters, referring to a Gaza district ravaged by fighting.
US pressure
In addition to the 1200 people killed on October 7, Hamas took some 240 hostages. Israel is also determined to recover the 129 still held in Gaza. Qatari and Egyptian-mediated truce efforts have raised the prospect of some of them being freed.
US President Joe Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Israel’s objectives and the phasing of its military operations in Gaza on December 23, the White House said.
Biden also underscored the need to protect civilian lives and secure the release of hostages being held by the Hamas Islamist militant group, it said.
The US has kept up its support for Israel while expressing concern over the growing casualty toll and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
US officials have urged Israel to shift its military operations in Gaza to a lower-intensity phase that would include more targeted operations focused on the Hamas leadership and its infrastructure.
Israel initially drafted 300,000 reservists – some 10 per cent to 15 per cent of its workforce – for what looks set to be its longest-ever war. Government sources have said between 200,000 and 250,000 reservists were still mobilised and absent from jobs or studies.
Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the deployment of reservists would be crafted “in a way that it can be refreshed, the Israeli economy can function, families who are waiting for their loved ones can return to their routines”.
Local media have reported that several military divisions were deployed throughout Gaza.
The official added that some of the troops pulled out of Gaza in the south would be prepared for rotation to the northern border with Lebanon, where Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Lebanon border
The Israeli military said on Monday it had struck a series of targets in Lebanon, including Hezbollah military sites.
It said that earlier five soldiers were wounded by cross-border fire from Lebanon.
The military said that its troops and aircraft had “struck a series of targets in Lebanon, including terrorist infrastructure, military sites in which Hezbollah terrorists were operating, and launch posts.”
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said on its Telegram account that three of its fighters were killed in southern Lebanon.
The statement gave no detail about how the three were killed but said they “were martyred on the road to (liberate) Jerusalem”.
Security sources said they were killed in an Israeli raid on two houses in the Lebanese village of Kafr Kila near the border where Hezbollah maintains security control.
Israel has warned that, if Hezbollah does not back down, a full-on Lebanon war looms. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran, whose militant allies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have also been carrying out longer-range attacks against Israel.
“The situation on the Lebanese front will not be allowed to continue. This coming six-month period is a critical moment,” the official said, adding that Israel would convey a similar message to a US envoy conducting shuttle missions to Beirut.
In Gaza, the Israel-Hamas war has inflicted unprecedented devastation, with the health ministry reporting almost 22,000 fatalities, many of them civilian.
Israel says it has killed more than 8000 Palestinian fighters – suggesting that, by its own accounting, Hamas retains core personnel. Pre-war Israeli assessment were that the group had around 30,000 fighters.
The Israeli military announced on Saturday it was sending some reservists home as part of what top commander Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi has deemed a “reconfiguration” of forces.
“From the first moments of this war, we said it would take long,” Halevi told troops on Tuesday. “Will we ultimately be able to say there are no more foes around the State of Israel? I think that is overly ambitious. But we will deliver a different security situation – safe and, as much as possible, stable too.”
Israel has listed 174 soldiers – many of them reservists – as killed in Gaza fighting and nine on the Lebanese border.
The Gaza war was triggered by a surprise Hamas attack on Israeli towns on October 7 that Israel says killed 1200 people. Palestinian health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza say Israel’s offensive there has killed more than 21,978 people and wounded many thousands more. Israel says it has killed approximately 8000 Hamas militants since the war began.
Reuters