Tel Aviv: The Israel Defence Forces have withdrawn all ground troops from the southern Gaza Strip after a long four-month fight in the Khan Younis area, reported The Times of Israel. The IDF withdrew their troops overnight on Saturday.
Meanwhile, only one brigade, Nahal, is presently in the Gaza Strip. The Nahal Brigade is tasked with securing the so-called Netzarim Corridor, which crosses Gaza from the Be’eri area in southern Israel to the Strip’s coast, according to The Times of Israel. The corridor further enables the IDF to carry out raids in northern and central Gaza and prevents Palestinians from returning to the northern part of the Strip.
It further allows humanitarian organisations to deliver aid directly to northern Gaza, The Times of Israel reported. Today, the country marked six months of war against the Hamas-terror group. The IDF published new data on its operations in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Lebanon, highlighting everything from the number of terror operatives killed to the number of sites struck.
According to the data, more than 13,000 Hamas operatives and members of other terror groups have been killed by the IDF in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war, in addition to some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7, when gunmen rampaged through southern communities, massacring some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 253 to Gaza. The data presented by the IDF further stated that the military has killed five Hamas brigade commanders and those of an equivalent rank, as well as more than 20 battalion commanders.
Additionally, over, 100 Hamas company commanders and operatives with a similar rank have also been killed, according to the data, The Times of Israel reported. In Lebanon, the IDF said that it has killed over 330 terror operatives, mostly members of the Iran-backed Hezbollah. The number included 30 Hezbollah commanders, according to the IDF. Some 32,000 targets have been struck in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war, including more than 3,600 that were discovered as Hamas sites during the fighting.
According to the data, since the beginning of the war, around 9,100 projectiles were fired from Gaza and crossed the border into Israel, alongside 3,100 from Lebanon and around 35 from Syria. Since October 7, in the West Bank, the IDF said that the troops have arrested more than 3,700 Palestinians, including more than 1,600 affiliated with Hamas. Another 420 gunmen have also been killed by troops in the West Bank, the IDF stated, reported The Times of Israel.
