The cities of southern Gaza are anticipating an Israeli escalation against them, similar to the cities in the north, in what has been described as “establishing a new phase” of the war by shifting its weight south and putting more pressure on the population to move towards Rafah on the Egyptian-Palestinian border.

A military expert for Sky News Arabia monitors Israel's goals in this "new phase" and its relationship with the population displacement plan.

Hours ago, the chief spokesman for the Israeli army, Admiral Daniel Hagari, announced in a press conference that the forces would bomb Hamas targets wherever they found them, including the southern Gaza Strip.

Shortly thereafter, the Palestinian News Agency, Wafa, reported that 26 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured in an Israeli bombing, at dawn on Saturday, that targeted residential apartments in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli raids also targeted a house east of Rafah, killing a number of people who were taken to Al-Najjar Hospital.

In parallel, the Israeli army continues to ask residents of southern Gaza to leave their homes, indicating the expansion of its ground incursion to reach there, which means additional pressure on residents to leave.

"the trick"

Military expert Major General Majid Al-Qaisi, director of the Security and Defense Program at the Center for International Policymaking, describes Israel’s previous announcement that its target was northern Gaza as a “hoax.” Because it "wants the operations to include the entire sector, from its north to the Egyptian border in the south."

Far from what Tel Aviv suggests that its goal in bombing southern Gaza is to track down armed members of the Hamas movement and reach the hostages that the movement may transport there, Al-Qaisi outlines what he sees as the real goals of shifting the weight of operations to southern Gaza:

After failing to achieve a military achievement in the northern Gaza Strip, Israel wants to establish a new phase, in which it opens a front in the city of Khan Yunis. To disperse the Hamas movement and push it to fight on the axes of Beit Lahia in the north and Khan Yunis in the south.

The bombing of Khan Yunis reduces the pressure on the Israeli army, and isolates Deir al-Balah from Khan Yunis, just as Gaza was isolated from Deir al-Balah.

An attempt to influence the population in this area, which has become crowded with displaced people from the north of the Gaza Strip, and force them to move further south towards Rafah.

In this direction, it is expected that Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis will be exposed to what Al-Shifa Hospital was exposed to. Because it is a large hospital and there are displaced people there.

The Israeli army is trying to achieve a military achievement on the ground and market it to internal public opinion, which is no longer convinced of achieving any victories

“We will not clean up after Israel”

For his part, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Al-Safadi, on Saturday, renewed his country's rejection of Israel's plan to displace Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan.

Al-Safadi said, during the “Manama Dialogue” summit held by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Bahrain, that the Israeli war will bring disaster, not only to Gaza, but to the region.

Speaking before the summit, Al-Safadi stated that the Israeli government appears to aim to expel the Palestinians from Gaza, which constitutes a direct threat to national security in Jordan and Egypt, noting that the Israelis have been saying for years that the only way forward is to expel the Palestinians from the land of their ancestors.

But after the war, Al-Safadi continues, the Arab countries will not come and clean up the mess after Israel, stressing that no Arab forces will be sent to Gaza.

In the past few days, Israeli and American proposals were circulated for countries neighboring Gaza to send Arab forces to maintain security in the Strip. And ensuring that Palestinian armed factions do not return to action again.

Internal rejection of Netanyahu

The expansion of the military operation to southern Gaza coincides with increasing internal pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as a new opinion poll showed that the majority of Israelis do not want Netanyahu, whose dismissal is getting louder.

In the poll, the results of which were published by the Maariv newspaper in cooperation with the Lazar Research Center, on Friday, regarding who is better to head the government, Netanyahu or the Minister of the War Cabinet, Benny Gantz, the results were as follows:

Benny Gantz 50 percent.

Netanyahu 29 percent.

21 percent responded that they did not know.

As the poll showed, the Likud Party, led by Netanyahu, declined to 17 seats in the Knesset (Parliament), after it had 18 seats in the last elections.

In contrast, the party of Gantz, a former defense minister, won 42 seats in the poll, a record number since its formation.

(Sky News)