Palestinian Hamas fighters aren’t protected from Israeli forces wherever in Gaza – together with within the latter areas, such because the southern metropolis of Rafah, the place Israeli forces haven’t but been deployed, the protection minister of Israel mentioned.
“Each terrorist hiding in Rafah should know that they’ll find yourself like these in Khan Younis and (the town of) Gaza,” Yoav Gallant mentioned at a press convention in Tel Aviv on Monday, Israeli media reported.
Gallant alluded to the truth that the military crushed quite a few Hamas fight models in Gaza Metropolis and Khan Younis, killing 1000’s of its fighters.
“A great half of the Hamas terrorists are lifeless or severely injured,” he mentioned, with 18 Hamas battalions routed and not present as combating models.
Gallant first talked about a potential military advance on Rafah on Friday.
Rafah, the place about 200,000 folks lived earlier than the battle, is at present crowded with greater than one million Palestinians who’ve fled the combating from different components of the Gaza Strip.
Rafah is on the border with Egypt. Cairo fears that navy operations within the border metropolis may result in a rush of determined Palestinians into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
On the similar time, the Israeli military is underneath stress to take management of the border of the Gaza Strip with Egypt. He suspects that there are nonetheless tunnels passing underneath the border via which Hamas may get provides of weapons and different items. Egypt denies this.
