Israeli estimates are that “Arab countries and a number of European countries intend to supply the southern Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid, with the aim of helping more than a million refugees, and Al-Sanwar plans to delay the resumption of ground maneuvers upon the end of the truce.”

The Israeli army is anticipating that it will not be able to resume extensive ground maneuvers in the Gaza Strip, after the truce that is expected to begin tomorrow and extend for four days, in parallel with the implementation of the prisoner exchange deal, which Israel ratified last night.

Estimates in Israel indicate that the head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, “is planning to delay the resumption of ground maneuvers upon the end of the truce,” according to what Amir Bouhbut, a military analyst on the Walla website, said on Wednesday.

Sources in the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Occupied Territories unit and in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs were quoted as saying that estimates are that “Arab countries and a number of European countries intend to supply the southern Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid, with the aim of helping more than a million refugees,” who were displaced from the north of Gaza Strip in the wake of the occupation army’s bombing of this area, the terrible destruction of buildings and infrastructure there, and the death of more than 14 thousand Palestinians, the majority of whom are children and women.

The same Israeli sources added, "Hamas will wait for the arrival of the floating hospital that France will send, and the entry of international relief organizations and logistical forces from different countries, in order to begin a campaign against a humanitarian crisis in the Strip."

One of the Israeli sources said about Sinwar, “It is not a coincidence that he is waiting for this. He wants momentum. This is the trap. With the passage of time, he will publish more pictures of a tent city, in order to portray the southern Gaza Strip as an area afflicted by an international humanitarian crisis. Thus, he will prevent the Israeli army’s ground maneuvers” and its movement to the south.

Bouhbut suggested that the ground maneuver would be relatively reduced “in a tense situation like this,” and that “instead of the ground maneuver moving to Khan Yunis or Rafah, it is possible for the forces to attack the camps in the center of the Strip, such as Nuseirat, as well as Bureij and Deir al-Balj, or to carry out a limited ground maneuver” in areas in the south of the Gaza Strip that are not described as areas afflicted by a humanitarian crisis.”

He considered that "such military operations will not put significant military pressure on Hamas, and therefore will not lead to a deal to liberate other kidnapped persons."

Bouhbut claimed, “In order for the Israeli army to put real pressure on Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza must see tanks around his immediate surroundings, such as Khan Yunis, where his headquarters is located. Otherwise, he will not believe that the Israeli army intends to move the ground maneuver to Khan Yunis.”

He pointed out the problem of ground maneuver forces entering areas where there are a million displaced people, and that “there is a fear, increasing day after day, that political pressures will stop the operations of the Israeli army. It has now become clear, for example, that Jordan refuses to evacuate the Jordanian hospital in the Gaza Strip and the adjacent Al-Shifa Hospital. This is a 'honey trap' that Sinwar is preparing for the Israeli army, and it remains to be seen how Israel will confront it from both the political and military standpoints."

Bouhbut pointed out that "the truce in the fighting in Gaza is a ceasefire, and this is how the Israeli army dictionary deals with it. In practice, the fighting will stop and it is not known when and if it will resume."

Source:arab48