Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes that the main phase of the war against Islamic Hamas in the Gaza Strip will soon be concluded.
“We are moving towards the end of the phase of dismantling the Hamas terrorist army,” he said in Jerusalem, at a reception for National Defense Academy cadets. “We will continue to fight against their remnants.”
Netanyahu had previously visited the Gaza Division, which is currently stationed in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. He saw “very considerable progress” there, he said.
Israel has been bombing Gaza for months and began a ground offensive after Hamas’ mass attack on October 7. At least 37,765 Palestinians have been killed and another 86,429 injured in Gaza since then, according to the Palestinian health authority.
The offensive in Rafah, on the border with Egypt, aims to dismantle Hamas’ last major fighting units, Netanyahu said. However, the Islamic militia remains militarily active in the form of smaller units.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s words indicate that the Israeli army’s major land offensive in the Gaza Strip could soon come to an end.
Netanyahu and senior military officials frequently stressed that Israeli troops would remain in strategic locations in the isolated coastal zone, even after the phase of intense fighting. This would mainly include the so-called Philadelphia Corridor, a narrow 14-kilometer-long strip that runs along the border with Egypt, near Rafah on the Gaza side.
