|
Trending Topics
|
IDF Rooting Out Hamas Forces Trying to Regroup in Northern Gaza
(Times of Israel) Lazar Berman - Lt.-Col. Aviran Alfasi, a battalion commander in the Givati Brigade, said that in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighborhood, "There is resistance, but it's not like it was at the beginning. They shoot and run away. The battle is way less complex than it was." The battalion's mission for the last month has been to destroy the infrastructure and eliminate the fighters of Hamas' Zeitoun battalion. Almost every platoon has a drone that can enter homes ahead of troops, and there are more search dogs than ever before, Alfasi said. "We see attempts [by Hamas] to come back. It's not too organized. When it happens, we foil it." Lt.-Col. Oz Meshulam, another battalion commander, said the IDF's task is made infinitely more complex by the cooperation of many regular Gazans with Hamas. He said over 80% of the 1,000 homes they have searched contained weapons. "When you see that they hid weapons in every house we took, you understand that Hamas is inside the population. It lives with them, it breathes with them. They allow it to build this infrastructure." The troops found weapons in every school they searched, he said, and especially in UN and UNRWA facilities. "There is no chance [the UN] didn't know." Both commanders insisted that destroying Hamas is entirely achievable. "Every day, we are defeating and destroying Hamas," said Meshulam.