Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expects the main phase of the war against the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip to be concluded soon.
“We are moving toward the end of the phase of dismantling Hamas’s terror army,” he said in Jerusalem at a reception for cadets at the National Defense Academy. “We will continue to fight their remnants.”
Netanyahu had earlier visited the Gaza Division, currently stationed in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, where he had seen “very significant progress,” he said.
Israel has been bombarding Gaza for months and launched a ground offensive following a massive Hamas attack on October 7. At least 37,765 Palestinians have been killed and another 86,429 wounded in Gaza since then, according to the Palestinian health authority.
The offensive in Rafah on the border with Egypt is aimed at dismantling the last major Hamas fighting units, Netanyahu said. However, the Islamist militia remains militarily active in the form of smaller units.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s words indicate that the Israeli army’s major ground offensive in the Gaza Strip could soon come to an end.
Netanyahu and senior military officials have frequently stressed that Israeli forces would remain in strategic locations in the closed coastal area even after the heavy fighting phase. This would primarily include the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, a 14-kilometer (9-mile) narrow strip that runs along the border with Egypt near Rafah on the Gaza side.
