Israel to draw down troops in Gaza Strip
New phase in war signaled; fighting to continue in south
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military confirmed Monday that it was pulling thousands of troops out of the Gaza Strip, a step that could clear the way for a new long-term phase of lower-intensity fighting against the Hamas militant group.
The confirmation of the planned troop drawdown came the same day that Israel’s Supreme Court struck down a key component of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious judicial overhaul plan.
While the plan is not directly connected to the war effort, it was the source of deep divisions inside Israel and had threatened the military’s readiness before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that triggered the ongoing war.
Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead with the military offensive until Hamas is crushed and the more than 100 hostages still held by the militant group in Gaza are freed.
But Israel has come under growing international pressure to scale back an offensive that has led to the deaths of nearly 22,000 Palestinians. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has repeatedly urged Israel to do more to protect Palestinian civilians, is expected in the region next week.
In its announcement, the army said that five brigades, or several thousand troops, would be taken out of Gaza in the coming weeks. Some will return to bases for further training or rest, while many older reservists will go home. The war has taken a toll on the economy by preventing reservists from going to their jobs, running their businesses or returning to university studies.
The Israel Defense Forces clarified that two brigades would be pulled back from Gaza this week, with three others following at an undisclosed date.
The army’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, did not say whether the withdrawal of some troops reflected a new phase of the war.
“The objectives of the war require prolonged fighting, and we are preparing accordingly,” he told reporters late Sunday.
The move is in line with the plans that Israeli leaders have outlined for a low-intensity campaign, expected to last for much of the year, that focuses on remaining Hamas strongholds and “pockets of resistance.”
Reducing the number of troops in Gaza appeared to signal a new stage of the war, one “of long-term, lower intensity combat, as the Biden administration has pushed for,” said Charles D. Freilich, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and a former Israeli
deputy national security adviser.
Hagari did not mention U.S. pressure in his statement, citing instead the economic burden the war has had on the country. The vast mobilization of more than 300,000 reservists for Israel’s war effort has dealt a blow to its workforce, especially in the high-tech sector. Economists interviewed by The Washington Post estimate that the war has cost the government about $18 billion — or $220 million a day.
Hagari said that combat had not stalled and would continue into 2024.
But “most of what can be achieved through the high-intensity combat has been achieved,” Freilich said.
“Hamas has been badly mauled but has not been destroyed or toppled as the governing body. And that effort will continue through a different approach, a longer-term one,” he said. It could include continued fighting in the city of Khan Younis and a potential push further south to target tunnels between Gaza and Egypt, he said.
“This appears to be the start of the gradual shift to lower intensity operations in the north that we have been encouraging, which reflects the success the IDF has had in dismantling Hamas’s military capabilities there,” said a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Israel’s military operations.
Israel has said it is close to operational control over most of northern Gaza, reducing the need for forces there. Yet fierce fighting has continued in other areas of the Palestinian territory, especially the south, where many of Hamas’ forces remain intact and where most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled.
Israel has vowed to crush Hamas’ military and governing capabilities in the ongoing war, which was sparked by the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and took 240 others hostage.
Israel responded with an air, ground and sea offensive that has killed more than 21,900 people in Gaza, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. 57,697 people have also been injured in Gaza, while the war has displaced nearly 2 million people who are suffering shortages of water, food and medical care. The Israeli military says 173 soldiers have died since it launched its ground operation.
Israel also says, without providing evidence, that more than 8,000 militants have been killed. It blames Hamas for the high civilian death toll, saying the militants embed within residential areas, including schools and hospitals.
The war has displaced some 85% of Gaza’s population, forcing tens of thousands of people in overcrowded shelters or teeming tent camps in Israeli-designated safe areas that the military has nevertheless bombed. Palestinians are left with a sense that nowhere is safe.
SOUTHERN BATTLES
In Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza that Israel says is a key Hamas stronghold, residents reported airstrikes and shelling in the west and center of the city. Combat was also reported in urban refugee camps in central Gaza, where Israel expanded its offensive last week.
An Associated Press reporter saw at least 17 bodies, including those of four children, at a hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah after a missile struck a house.
“It’s our routine: bombings, massacres and martyrs,” said Saeed Moustafa, a Palestinian from the Nuseirat camp.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Monday that 156 people had been killed in the past day. The Israeli military said an airstrike killed Adel Mismah, a regional commander of Hamas’ elite Nukhba forces, in Deir al-Balah.
In Israel, Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the communities hit by Hamas on Oct. 7, announced Monday that Ilan Weiss, who was thought to have been kidnapped, is now believed to be dead. Weiss’ daughter Noga Weiss, 18, and wife, Shiri Weiss, 53, were held in captivity in Gaza and released on Nov. 25 during a weeklong cease-fire.
REGIONAL TENSIONS
The fighting in Gaza has threatened to spread across the region.
Israel has engaged in nearly daily battles with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, to Israel’s north, and struck Iranian-linked targets in neighboring Syria as well.
Tensions on the Lebanese border continued to flare Monday. The IDF said rockets were fired into northern Israel, injuring five soldiers, and that it struck military targets in Lebanon. Hezbollah said three of its fighters were killed Monday, Reuters reported, citing the group’s Telegram account.
As Gaza rang in a new year, civilians said they felt no letup in the fighting.
“No one is talking about the new year here in Gaza. It’s a luxury thing no one here can afford now,” said one humanitarian worker in Rafah who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized by his organization to speak.
Israel’s warplanes and drones struck several areas in southern Lebanon, including a strike on the village of Kfar Kila that killed three people, state media and security officials said. Hezbollah said the three were some of its fighters.
Since the latest exchange of fire began along the Lebanon-Israel border Oct. 8, 133 Hezbollah fighters and around 20 civilians have been killed in Lebanon.
Information for this article was contributed by Josef Federman, Wafaa Shurafa, Samy Magdy, Melanie Lidman and Tara Copp of The Associated Press and by Ruby Mellen, Miriam Berger, Lior Soroka, William Booth, Shira Rubin, Hajar Harb and Toluse Olorunnipa of The Washington Post.