A news report says the Israeli military has withdrawn all ground troops from the southern Gaza Strip except for one brigade – or a few thousand soldiers. There might be two things going on here. We could see a redeployment of forces in anticipation of any ground offensive into southern Rafah.

That plays into the next thing we’re hearing – that by only having a few thousand troops, Israel may well be getting ready to allow people from Rafah to go back into northern Gaza. That is something quite key that Hamas has been demanding.

It means they are allowed to go back to their homes in northern Gaza, destroyed as those homes might be. It also gives Israel the opportunity to get a lot of civilians out of Rafah and into the northern territory, which allows it to mount that offensive.

The fact that we’ve now seen movement in these ceasefire talks in Egypt – with both the Israelis and Hamas confirming attendance – all of this could well be connected and that’s really what we’re hearing right now.


Not getting my hopes up yet

Reported withdrawal of Israeli brigades seen as a ‘tactical’ decision

Israeli army withdraws from the west of Khan Younis city: Reports

Israel won’t agree to a ceasefire after six months of the war on Gaza until Israeli captives are released, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says. His comments, made at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting, came as a new round of truce talks in Egypt begin.

“We are one step away from victory. But the price we paid is painful and heartbreaking. There will be no ceasefire without the return of hostages. It just won’t happen,” he said.

Netanyahu said that despite growing international pressure, Israel would not give in to “extreme” demands from Hamas.

As Qatar said before, it's the return of people to Northern Gaza which is what Hamas wants, they have no issue to release the captives otherwise.

Netanyahu: International pressure should be directed at Hamas, not Israel

Israeli security analyst Omer Dostri says the withdrawal is purely tactical and doesn’t mean the war is anywhere near over. Under heavy pressure from its ally the US, pulling out ground troops from southern Gaza will help Israel in truce and captive-release talks with Hamas, Dostri said.

But he predicted Israeli soldiers will return to fight surviving Hamas members after displaced people are evacuated from Rafah, the far southern city on the Egyptian border.

“I predict that, after the evacuation of the residents, within two months there will be a [ground] move in Rafah to destroy the remaining Hamas brigades,” said Dostri, a researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

He estimated that one Hamas brigade remains in Rafah and a battalion and a half of its fighters are in the centre of the Gaza Strip, “mainly in Nuseirat”. Dostri also predicted that, once those Gaza battles have ended, Israeli ground troops will step up operations against Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon.

“Israel’s military logic dictates the elimination of Hamas’s military power before launching a campaign in the north,” he said.

After six months of relentless attacks on Gaza, Israel remains no closer to a victory than it has been at any point since October of last year. Whether it has plans for the enclave beyond the fighting remains unknown, while more than 33,000 people, the majority women and children, lie dead.

The Israeli military’s troop reduction in the southern Gaza Strip appears to be a “rest and refit” and not necessarily indicative of any new operations, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby has said in an ABC News interview.

“As we understand it, and through their public announcements, it is really just about rest and refit for these troops … and not necessarily that we can tell indicative of some coming new operation for these troops,” Kirby said when asked about the step.

The Israeli military said earlier its troop reduction in south Gaza leaves just one brigade there six months after the start of its war on Gaza.




https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/07/middleeast/israel-khan-younis-withdrawal-gaza-intl/index.html

When asked by CNN about the reasons for the withdrawal, the IDF declined to comment. The IDF also did not comment on whether this means there are no more forces on the ground in southern Gaza.

What is also unclear is what the withdrawal means for Israel’s plans to invade Rafah, the southernmost part of Gaza that has become a shelter for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Israel has said an incursion into Rafah is essential to achieve its goal of eliminating Hamas from Gaza.

Israeli public broadcaster and CNN affiliate Channel 11 on Sunday reported that the remaining forces would be located along the so-called Netzarim Corridor, a route that splits the Gaza Strip in two. Named after the former Israeli settlement of Netzarim in Gaza, the corridor intersects one of Gaza’s two main north-south roads, Salaheddin Street, to create a strategic, central junction.

Khan Younis residents, who rushed back to their city after Israeli forces relocated from southern Gaza, found a wasteland of destruction and rubble, according to a Reuters news agency report.



The city has come under intense Israeli bombardment in recent months. Much of Khan Younis had been destroyed, many buildings have been bombed, and there are overturned cars stuck in the mud near craters left by missiles. Damaged hospital beds were seen on one street.



“It is a shock, a shock. What happened was not small … while coming on the way in the car, I saw things. The destruction is unbearable,” said Mohammed Abou Diab, who was among those who returned to his old neighbourhood.

People have been saying the situation is completely indescribable and chaotic as a great deal of destruction has been done to the entire area as a result of the battles between Hamas fighters and the Israeli soldiers and the unprecedented bombing campaign.



Khan Younis has been destroyed, with a complete destruction of civil infrastructure, mosques, and residential houses, as people are saying that they have nothing left in the city.

The World Health Organization’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said, “The deaths and grievous injuries of thousands of children in Gaza will remain a stain on all of humanity.”

“This assault on present and future generations must end. The denial of basic needs – food, fuel, sanitation, shelter, security and healthcare – is inhumane and intolerable,” he said in a post on X.

The WHO chief also said that the Hamas October 7 attack “does not justify the horrific ongoing bombardment, siege and health system demolition by Israel in Gaza, killing, injuring and starving hundreds of thousands of civilians, including aid workers”.

The UN Population Fund says a healthy pregnancy in Gaza is no longer feasible. “155,000 pregnant women and new mothers there are living with unimaginable stress,” the agency says in a post on Instagram.

“They face the fear of death not only from air strikes, but from pregnancy or birth complications as life-saving maternal services have all but collapsed. Now, six months into the war, they also face famine,” it says.

“Pregnant women need a ceasefire now and unfettered access for aid so they can receive the food, health care, safety and security that they urgently need.”

Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), has said in a statement posted on X that “no words can do justice to the horrors that people in Gaza are living in since the war began six months ago”.

“This war broke all the superlatives with the highest number of children killed, aid workers, journalists and medical teams,” he said, slamming “unprecedented attacks” on hospitals as well as UN buildings in Israel’s “blatant disregard” of international humanitarian law.

“All lines – including the red lines – were crossed,” he added. “This war is made far worse through technologies misused by humans to harm other humans, en mass.” He also said that the situation was “made worse by the famine born from an Israeli-imposed siege”.

Lazzarini concluded by calling for all captives in Gaza to be released and a ceasefire to be implemented immediately. Israel must open more land crossings and lift all restrictions on the UNRWA without further delay, he said.

The Israeli military says it has completed another stage in preparing for a possible war on its northern front with Lebanon and Syria. It said that over the past few days, another phase of the northern command’s readiness for war was completed.

The phase was focused on “operational emergency storages for a broad mobilisation” of Israeli troops when required, the military said in a statement titled: “Readiness for the Transition from Defence to Offence.”

Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Israel have been trading fire across the border since October 8, the day after Hamas’s October 7 attack and Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in response.

In recent months, the intensity and frequency of cross-border attacks have increased, as have fears of a regional conflagration.

The ‘end of the beginning’ for Netanyahu

Fully counting on dragging the USA into a war against Iran as well

Israeli military ‘can handle Iran’: Halevi

Israel’s 98th Division, comprised of paratroopers from the army and the reserves, has pulled out of Gaza’s Khan Younis area after entering the enclave around four months ago to lead the ground offensive in the south of the Palestinian territory.

The Israeli military said a “significant force led by the 162nd division and the Nahal brigade continues to operate in the Gaza Strip”. The 162nd Division, also known as the “Steel Formation”, is part of Israel’s Southern Command and is made up of several brigades, including the Nahal Brigade.

The Nahal Brigade is composed of four battalions, including a reconnaissance battalion. An Israeli brigade is typically made up of a few thousand soldiers.

The Nahal Brigade is tasked with securing the so-called Netzarim Corridor, a recently constructed 6.5km (4-mile) wide passage running from the Mediterranean Sea to the border with Israel and dividing Gaza’s northern and southern territories. With the corridor secured, it is still possible for Israeli troops from other divisions to enter the Strip to carry out raids.

The Times of Israel newspaper reported that the military believed, based on intelligence, that raids would be a more effective method of military operation at this stage of the war.

Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant says Israeli troops who pulled out of Gaza on Sunday did so to prepare for future operations, including in the enclave’s southern city of Rafah.

“The forces are exiting and preparing for their next missions. We saw examples of such missions in the Shifa operation, and also of their coming mission in the Rafah area,” Gallant said at a meeting with military officials, according to a statement from his office.

Israel’s Chief of General Staff Herzi Halevi said in a televised statement that “the war in Gaza continues, and we are far from stopping. Senior Hamas officials are still hiding. We will reach them sooner or later”.

“We will not leave any Hamas brigades active – in any part of the Gaza Strip. We have plans and will act when we decide,” he said.

The official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, reports that several civilians have been killed and others injured in an Israeli shelling of Nuseirat refugee camp and Rafah city. Citing medical sources, the media outlet reported that six civilians were killed in Israeli aerial raids targeting a commercial facility in Ain Jalut towers, south of the Nuseirat camp.

Wafa also stated that Israeli warplanes bombed a group of civilians in the town of Nassr, north of Rafah, killing at least one civilian and wounding several others.

Palestinian Civil Defense battles fire after Israeli bombardment on Gaza City

A group of German civil servants have written to Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other senior ministers calling on the government to “cease arm deliveries to the Israeli government with immediate effect”.

“Israel is committing crimes in Gaza that are in clear contradiction to international law and thus to the constitution, which we are bound to as federal civil servants and public employees,” the statement says, citing the International Court of Justice’s ruling in January that Israel’s military actions are “plausible acts of genocide”.

According to the organisers of the five-page statement, about 600 civil servants have voiced support for the initiative, which has slowly been gathering traction for months through professional networks and word-of-mouth across a range of ministries.

The father of Jacob Flickinger, a US citizen killed in an Israeli air strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy of aid workers in Gaza on April 1, has spoken to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, The Associated Press reports.

John Flickinger told Blinken that the US, Israel’s most important ally, must use its power to pressure Israel to end killings in the besieged Gaza Strip. “If the United States threatened to suspend aid to Israel, maybe my son would be alive today,” Flickinger told AP as he described his 30-minute conversation on Saturday with Blinken.

Jacob, 33, was killed in Israeli drone strikes that hit a convoy he and six other aid workers were travelling in to deliver food aid in Gaza. The elder Flickinger said that in his view, the strike “was a deliberate attempt to intimidate aid workers and to stop the flow of humanitarian aid”.

About 322 humanitarian trucks have been allowed to get into the Gaza Strip from both the Karem Abu Salem (known as Kerem Shalom to Israelis) crossing and the Rafah crossing here in Rafah. These humanitarian convoys are loaded with water, sugar, flour and all kinds of basic necessities that Palestinians very desperately need.

But none of these humanitarian convoys has been given access to reach the northern part of the Gaza Strip, despite the Israeli military decision to reopen again the Erez crossing (Beit Hanoon) and to guarantee further flow of humanitarian supplies to people in the north.

Generally in times before the war, between 400 and up to 500 humanitarian trucks were reaching the Gaza Strip on a daily basis. This means these new deliveries are still incomparable to the massive needs of populations here, specifically those who are trapped in the northern parts of Gaza and facing high rates of malnutrition.