The IDF announced on Sunday that it has taken control of the Hamas brigade headquarters in southern Gaza, which was also used by Muhammad Sinwar, brother and top lieutenant to Gaza Chief Yahya Sinwar.
Previously, on December 17, the IDF had announced it had penetrated Hamas's City Hall and another office of its brigade chief, Rafa’a Salame.
IDF sources said that the headquarters which was taken over was the largest they had seen in Khan Yunis.
Full operational control of Khan Yunis is expected in the coming week
Also, IDF sources said that they expected to achieve operational control in Khan Yunis within one week, the smallest amount of time the IDF has given for this benchmark.
Last week, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that Israel had already taken apart all of Hamas’s four battalions in Khan Yunis.
But at the same IDF sources had told the Jerusalem Post that he must have meant that the process of taking apart the battalions was so far along – even if not complete – that it was close to inevitable and would occur very soon.
Even after operational control is achieved, as the IDF achieved in northern Gaza over a month ago, IDF sources acknowledged that there will still be fighting and significant “mopping up” operations of smaller remaining terror cells.
The general idea is that more of the fighting will be against single-digit and small groups of Hamas terrorists who are cut off from any greater Hamas collective command structure versus the fighting until now, where Hamas often had hundreds of fighters resisting the IDF in a coordinated fashion.
According to the IDF, the Givati brigade alone, led by Col. Liron Batito and which was part of a force of seven IDF brigades in Khan Yunis, killed 550 Hamas terrorists using ground forces and another 250 using air support.
On Sunday, the Hamas numbers were already lower, with 14 killed by the IDF, now that the larger Hamas forces have been defeated in Khan Yunis.
Givati has lost eight of its own soldiers during the Gaza invasion, but 37 counting October 7 and the first week of fighting to repel Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel.
Civilians in Khan Yunis
Regarding civilians, the IDF recently evacuated 120,000 Palestinian civilians from Khan Yunis in a period of only five days in order to clear the area of civilians to be able to better hone in on any remaining terrorists.
In addition, the IDF arrested and sent for interrogation 500 Hamas fighters, which the IDF said led to significant intelligence gains.
Although IDF sources said they found many signs of Hamas’s leadership and the Israeli hostages they are holding, there was no concrete discussion of being able to find them imminently.
This continued trend of taking operational control of Khan Yunis without finding the Hamas leadership and their hostages has increased the probability that they are hiding in Rafah.
Israel still has not reached terms with Egypt for entering Rafah to search there and take apart what has ballooned to four Hamas battalions among the likely now more than 1.5 million civilians.