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Israeli Defense Minister: Gaza War Is Not Nearing an End
(Times of Israel) Emanuel Fabian - As the Israeli military began shifting into lower gear in northern Gaza, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Tuesday that any sense that Israel was ending the campaign to dismantle Hamas "is wrong." He told IDF troops in central Gaza, "To the north, we destroyed 12 Hamas battalions. Terrorists still remain, a few thousand of the 15,000 or 18,000 that were in the area. A large number of them were eliminated and others fled to the south." In northern Gaza, Gallant said, the IDF would continue to conduct smaller operations to root out the last Hamas operatives. "The goal is to exhaust the enemy, kill [its operatives], and achieve a situation in which we control the territory." Gallant said that in southern Gaza the IDF was focused on infrastructure above Hamas tunnels in the Khan Yunis area "where senior Hamas officials are hiding, at great depths. We are reaching them...and it is happening already now."