It is difficult to "cleanse" areas of the Gaza Strip of resistance. After 57 days, Shuja'iya is still fighting, not to mention the presence of pockets of resistance in other neighborhoods. The Israeli army entering Khan Yunis without a plan for the “next day” is suitable for a revenge operation and not a step that is supposed to serve a strategy.

The fact that the Palestinian resistance in Gaza surprised Israel and the world with its unparalleled steadfastness over 58 days of the devastating war on Gaza is a fact that won the world’s admiration and attracted the attention of many Israeli and non-Israeli analysts and observers. In this context, Yedioth Ahronoth journalist Nadav Eyal wrote: The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) did not surprise Israel in attack (the October 7th operation), but also in defense (its ability to withstand the war), noting that after more than 55 days of war, its end results still seems distant and unclear. 

He pointed out that Hamas surprised Israel in the defense tactics it chose, and that despite the much talk about booby-traps, explosive devices, and ambushes that preceded the ground operation, which the Israeli army neutralized with heavy aerial bombardment, the surprise was that the Hamas leadership “did not succeed or did not want” to engage in Extensive and violent battles with Israeli army units, and they chose the method of hiding and staying away from the clash.

The Israeli journalist says that Sinwar “is betting on time and believes that he and his forces can remain underground more than the Israeli army can remain above it.” At a time when the Israeli army forces, with their enormous numerical and firepower capabilities, are looking for direct confrontation, the majority of Hamas fighters prefer to remain in their trenches. Located in the city of tunnels, which is wider and deeper than what the Israeli security services had expected, while the fighting groups consist of small cells, usually armed with RPG shells, which emerge from the nozzles of tunnels or residential buildings, and strike from close-up at weak points the Israeli fortifications.

This tactic is what explains, perhaps, the presence of the Qassam Brigades in the northern areas of the Gaza Strip, despite their entry by the Israeli army and its claim to control them. This is what prompts the political commentator Nahum Barnea to write that it is difficult to “cleanse” the areas of the Gaza Strip of resistance, after 57 days. Al-Shuja'iya is still fighting, not to mention the presence of pockets of resistance in other neighborhoods, noting that the ticking of the clock has increased, not only because of American pressure, but also because of the situation of the civilian population, indicating that it is doubtful that Israel has more than two weeks, a period that does not seem to be sufficient to achieve the ambitious goals announced by the political leadership at the beginning of the war.

Barnea warns that the Israeli army’s entry into Khan Yunis without a plan for the next day is suitable for a revenge operation and not a step that is supposed to serve a strategy, and that it is entering an area crowded with displaced people from the north who lack shelter and constitute a demographic addition to the population of Khan Yunis. He notes the Israeli army’s call for residents to flee towards Rafah, at a time when United Nations data indicate an increasing possibility of the spread of epidemics and the occurrence of a humanitarian crisis.

Barnea concludes by calling for lowering expectations because there will be no victory in Gaza, and it is useful to move as quickly as possible to what he calls the process of “healing, restoring, and returning the kidnapped,” as he puts it.

These conclusions and analyzes coincide with the change in the American discourse expressed by the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, by saying that his country will not allow the victory of Hamas, which was considered a 180-degree shift from the previous rhetoric of eliminating Hamas, and is also added to the skeptical statements of the French President, Emmanuel Macron who stated that with the possibility of eliminating Hamas, considering that achieving this goal would mean continuing the war for ten years. Macron said that the response to Hamas attacks is not to eliminate an entire region or bomb entire civilian infrastructure.

Regarding the difficulties and complications of the Israeli military operation, and its possible arrival at a dead end, Zvi Harel, a military analyst for Haaretz newspaper, writes, pointing out the difficulty of evacuating the population from the southern region, and the inapplicability of the map of the areas circulated by the Israeli army. He says that the government and the Israeli army are now maneuvering in an actual minefield, and it is not known when American patience will run out, which could happen as a result of “a humanitarian catastrophe or as a result of a significant increase in the number of civilian deaths due to Israeli army fire.”

source: Arab48