Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said he believed the main phase of the war against Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip would be concluded soon.
“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 following Hamas’ mass attack on southern Israel on October 7. At least 37,765 Palestinians have been killed and another 86,429 injured in Gaza since then, according to the coastal strip’s 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 army’s major ground 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.
On Monday morning, around 20 rockets were fired into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip, with Israeli artillery responding, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.
Some of the rockets were intercepted, while others landed in the open, he said. Air raid sirens sounded in locations near the border ordering residents to seek shelter. The IDF said it fired artillery at the launch sites.
The attacks were the heaviest in some time, Israeli media reported.
Thousands of rockets were fired in the first months of the war at Israeli targets as far away as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Since then, the attacks have decreased in frequency.
