Day 95 – Israeli officials confirm: Fighting in Gaza is entering a transitional phase

IDF spokesman says Hamas operations in northern Gaza Strip is dismantled

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Amid increasing international pressure to end the war and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit to Israel on Monday, IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Daniel Hagari announced that the war in the Gaza Strip was about to enter a new phase.

The military framework of the Hamas organization in the northern Gaza Strip had been dismantled, Hagari noted while cautioning that terrorists and weapons were still present but not functioning in an organized manner.

“We will now operate in this region in a different way and with a different mix of forces to deepen the achievement,” Hagari said in his daily press briefing on Monday evening.

“It was a very significant move – very heavy with a lot of forces with an emphasis on reservist forces,” Hagari added. “The fighting into 2024 continues but will happen differently; reservists will be released, we will act in a different way, according to what is required in the operational space.”

Hagari specifically stressed this point following comments he made to the New York Times that caused a stir in Israeli media during the day.

“The war shifted a stage,” Hagari told the NYT. “But the transition will be with no ceremony. It’s not about dramatic announcements.”

IDF ground forces in Gaza (Photo: IDF)

According to the NYT report, the new stage in the fighting would see fewer numbers of airstrikes and troops on the ground and instead rely on surgical raids of Israeli commandos into population centers througout the Strip.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant echoed this sentiment in his comments to the Wall Street Journal on Monday. “We’re close to the next phase in the north, including Gaza City,” he said.

Israeli forces would begin to shift from what he called the “intense maneuvering phase of the war” toward “different types of special operations,” he explained, adding that this next phase “will last for a longer time” and would focus on central and southern Gaza.

Hagari continued: “It is still an intense and complex operational activity… in the center and the south. The fighting will continue in 2024 as well.”

The U.S. Biden administration has been pressuring Israel to transition its warfare to a less intensive phase to reduce casualties among Gazan civilians. The U.S. has urged Israel to lower the intensity of the fighting amid decreasing support for the war among Democratic voters and elected officials.

Meanwhile, soldiers of the 188th Armored Brigade and Golani Infantry Brigade discovered a huge underground weapons production facility in the al-Bureij camp in central Gaza.

The factory reportedly produced long-range rockets, mortar bombs and parts of unmanned aircraft and stretched along a kilometer and a half (1 mile) in a civilian area under Salah al-Din road, which has served as the main humanitarian corridor for Gazan civilians during the fighting.

It was the largest weapon production plant found since the ground operations began and was connected to a system of underground tunnels, allowing the weapons to be transported to all parts of the Strip.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) struck some 30 Hamas targets whose destruction will “help the forces that are maneuvering in the area to continue fighting,” the IDF said.

Following this, several battlegroups fighting under the command of the 98th Division expanded their maneuvers deeper into the town, killing some 40 terrorists and locating many weapons and “significant” tunnel shafts.

Soldiers of the Paratrooper Brigade battlegroup found 12 Kalashnikov rifles, four loaded RPG launchers, dozens of grenades, loaded magazines and vests.

The Golani Brigade’s battlegroup identified a squad of Hamas terrorists from the Central Camps Brigade, which hasn’t been dismantled yet, in the al-Maghazi area in central Gaza and directed an aircraft to strike and eliminate the squad.

Four IDF soldiers have been killed in recent battles in the Gaza Strip, raising the death toll from the ground offensive to 180.

The fallen soldiers are Sgt. Roi Tal (19), of the Kfir Brigade’s Duchifat Battalion; Sgt. First Class (res.) David Schwartz (26) of the Combat Engineering Corps’ 8219th Battalion; Sgt. First Class (res.) Yakir Hexter (26), also of the Combat Engineering Corps’ 8219th Battalion; and Sgt. First Class (res.) Gavriel Bloom (27), a combat engineer in the 36th Division.