Gallant: IDF’s Rafah campaign choking Hamas by blocking crossing, destroying tunnels

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant asserted during a visit to southern Gaza’s Rafah on Sunday that Hamas is unable to recover from the pressure applied by Israeli operations and, choked off from its weapons supply, is a broken force running out of time.

His remarks came nine months into the war with the Palestinian terror group, as the Israel Defense Forces returned to some areas where it previously operated in order to confront a re-emergence of Hamas forces. Israeli officials say that the army has defeated all but four Hamas battalions in the Gaza Strip — two in Rafah, and two more in central Gaza.

In a prelude to the Rafah offensive, the IDF captured the adjacent Rafah border crossing with Egypt and uncovered 25 smuggling tunnels along the boundary, believed key conduits Hamas used to smuggle weapons into the Strip.

“The fighting here in Rafah signifies a very important thing. We are actually shutting off Hamas’s air — Rafah crossing, the tunnels,” Gallant said to troops. “The result is that they have no way of arming themselves, they have no way to equip themselves, they have no way to bring in reinforcements, they have no way to take care of their casualties, and we see this very well.”

“Their fighting spirit is broken and time is not on their side; it is actually working against them,” Gallant continued.

“Contrary to the stories of some people who are in the tunnels shouting and broadcasting to those who are in the hotels in Qatar… in practice Hamas… is being worn down. We are destroying the tunnels, we are destroying the weapons, and reaching places it never dreamed we would reach, at great depths belowground,” he said referring to Hamas’s leadership in Gaza that is believed to be bunkered in the vast network of tunnels the group has dug under the Palestinian enclave.

Gallant vowed the IDF will “continue and push until we reach a situation where we choke [Hamas’s] windpipe, and do not allow it to rebuild its strength. This is the goal of this operation.”

In Rafah, the army said several terror operatives had been killed and tunnels were demolished over the past day.

One Hamas tunnel had been uncovered adjacent to a United Nations school, the military said.

Several tunnel shafts leading to the underground passages were located by troops operating under the Negev Brigade.

The shafts were later investigated by the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit, which also demolished the tunnels, the military said Sunday.

The IDF said the tunnel and its branches were some 500 meters in length, with one of the entrances being adjacent to an UNRWA school.

Separately, troops located a Hamas site in the area with at least nine rocket launchers, the military said. The rocket launching site was also demolished.

Heavy fighting, meanwhile, has shifted north, where the army on Thursday launched a fresh operation in Shejaiya, after identifying Hamas fighters regrouping in the eastern Gaza City neighborhood.

Battles were also ongoing in the Netzarim corridor in central Gaza, where the army has established a base of operations meant to maintain security control over the territory and halt Hamas movement between the southern and northern parts of the Strip.

With the Rafah operation expected to wind down in the coming weeks — and the war to move to a new, less intensive phase — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a situational assessment Sunday with top aides and military commanders in Southern Command headquarters.

Netanyahu was joined in Beersheba by National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi and Gallant.

The officers on hand included Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, Southern Command head Yaron Finkelman, Air Force Commander Tomer Bar, the heads of the 162nd, 99th, and 98th divisions — all currently fighting in Gaza — and the commander of the Gaza Division.

The heads of the General Staff Operations and Intelligence directorates, the Ground Forces, and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories also participated.

The war erupted on October 7 when Palestinian terror group Hamas led a massive cross-border attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people as hostages to Gaza.

Israel responded with a military campaign to destroy Hamas, topple its Gaza regime, and free the hostages.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 37,500 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.

Israel has lost 318 troops in the ground offensive against Hamas and amid operations along the Gaza border. The toll includes a police officer killed in a hostage rescue mission. A civilian Defense Ministry contractor has also been killed in the Strip.