IDF: Hamas’s Rafah Brigade has collapsed, 80% of border tunnels neutralized
Islamic Jihad intelligence commander killed in strike; military says documents found in Gaza show terror group falsified prominent polling results
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
The Hamas terror group’s Rafah Brigade had “collapsed” as a result of the Israel Defense Forces’s ongoing offensive in the city in the southern Gaza Strip, military sources said on Thursday.
The remarks come a week after Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the Rafah Brigade had been defeated.
Hamas’s Rafah Brigade was made up of four battalions: Yabna (South), Shaboura (North), Tel Sultan (West), and East Rafah. It had been considered one of the terror group’s final strongholds in the Strip until the IDF’s 162nd Division launched its offensive there in May.
Amid the fighting in Rafah, the military has seen Hamas operatives increasingly trying to escape from tunnels and flee north to the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone, instead of fighting troops. IDF troops have successfully been ambushing Hamas gunmen in the area who have tried to flee, the military sources added.
The IDF has said it has killed more than 1,000 terror operatives in Rafah amid the ongoing offensive, and that many gunmen fled with the Palestinian population as the operation began.
In addition to fighting in the city itself, the operation in Rafah has also focused on the Philadelphi Corridor — the Egypt-Gaza border area, where IDF combat engineers have discovered dozens of tunnels, some of them cross-border.
Combat engineers have been meticulously sweeping the entire Gaza-Egypt border for tunnels while expanding the corridor by demolishing structures within about 800 meters (875 yards) of the border.
Such tunnels have been used by Hamas for smuggling, although military sources have said that the terror group in recent years has been smuggling weapons via the overground Rafah Crossing, rather than using tunnels. The crossing was captured by the IDF on the first day of the offensive in Rafah.
As of Thursday, the IDF said that around 80 percent of Hamas’s tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor had been neutralized. More than 150 tunnels have been discovered along the corridor, Gallant said last week.
Earlier Thursday, the IDF said a Palestinian Islamic Jihad intelligence officer was killed in a drone strike in Rafah.
According to the military, Osama Gadallah served as a commander in Islamic Jihad’s military intelligence unit, and he also participated in the October 7 onslaught.
The IDF said that dozens more gunmen were killed by troops with the 162nd Division in Rafah in the past day.
Further north, in Khan Younis and on the outskirts of Deir al-Balah, the IDF said troops with the 98th Division also killed dozens of gunmen in clashes and by directing drone strikes over the previous 24 hours.
In the Netzarim Corridor in the Strip’s center, reservists with the 252nd Division directed a drone strike on a cell of gunmen, while carrying out pinpoint raids in the area, the military said.
In addition, the Israeli Air Force struck more than 40 targets across Gaza in the past day, which the IDF said included buildings used by Hamas and other positions used by terror operatives to open fire at troops.
Falsified polling results
On Thursday, the IDF revealed Hamas documents recovered from the Strip that it said showed the terror group has been secretly falsifying the results of polls conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR).
The IDF said the documents do not prove that PCPSR was cooperating with Hamas, but rather that the terror group was conducting clandestine actions to fraudulently influence the results of the polls.
PCPSR, which is based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, is run by prominent Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki.
In the Gaza Strip, the firm uses Gazan data collectors to conduct surveys in residential areas and shelters for displaced Palestinians, and it is thought that Hamas was able to take advantage of this to manipulate the results later sent back to Shikaki.
In a document released by the IDF, a letter written by one Hamas official to another read: “Following the subject, we would like to inform you that we have completed the preparation of Research Survey No. 91. The survey results have been revised according to the practices followed in previous surveys, and the results have been sent by the source to the center in Ramallah.”
According to the IDF, the documents it recovered in Gaza “prove an extensive effort by the terror organization to falsify the results of [the PCPSR] polls, to create a false representation of the Gazan public’s support for the terror organization, especially after the massacre [in Israel] on October 7.
“These documents are part of a systematic process, the purpose of which is to disguise the collapse of the organization, and the collapse of public support for it,” the IDF claimed.
The military said the documents “emphasize the importance that the Hamas terror organization sees in the results of the polls, to falsify Palestinian support and to influence the Palestinian public and Arab and international public opinion.”
The alleged Hamas document released by the IDF (English translated version) showed the results of a PCPSR poll from March 2024, with both the original data and the falsified numbers.
The published poll showed 71% of Palestinians supporting the October 7 Hamas attack, while the IDF said the actual data showed support from just 30.7% of respondents.
“The documents show that the falsified results are in favor of the organization and its leaders, with an emphasis on Yahya Sinwar,” the military said.
In response, Shikaki said it was “highly unlikely” that Hamas falsified the results of the polls conducted in Gaza.
“Our Gaza team worked with us for more than 20 years. But we will investigate all claims as part of a commitment to ensure full quality control,” Shikaki told The Times of Israel.
Shikaki maintained that the IDF claim is part of a “battle over narratives” between the military and the terror group. “The center doesn’t involve itself in politics, which is how I view this, the army against Hamas in the battle over narratives,” he said.
Gianluca Pacchiani contributed to this report.
