From the Liveblog of
Sunday, April 7, 2024
Gallant claims Hamas ‘stopped functioning as a military organization throughout Gaza’; his office later partly walks back the statement
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claims that Hamas has “stopped functioning as a military organization throughout the Gaza Strip.”
Following an assessment at the IDF Southern Command, he says “The achievements of the 98th Division and its units are extremely impressive, targeting terrorists, destroying enemy targets, warehouses, weapons, underground [sites], headquarters, communication rooms.”
“All these things were carried out in a very impressive manner and thus, Hamas stopped functioning as a military organization throughout the Gaza Strip,” he says.
A spokesperson for Gallant later clarified that the minister was referring to the Khan Younis area and other parts of the Strip where the military had operated, and not all of Gaza.
Gallant says that the IDF is still preparing to deal with Hamas’s remaining battalions in southern Gaza’s Rafah.
“The forces came out [of Gaza] and are preparing for their future missions. We saw examples of such missions in action at Shifa [Hospital], and also for their future mission in the Rafah area,” Gallant says.
“We will reach a situation where Hamas does not control the Gaza Strip and where it does not function as a military framework that poses a risk to the citizens of the State of Israel,” he adds.
Israeli officials have said that 18 of Hamas’s 24 original battalions in the Gaza Strip have been dismantled, meaning they do not function as an organized military unit, although smaller cells still exist.
Four Hamas battalions remain virtually untouched in southern Gaza’s Rafah, and another two are in the central part of the Strip.
