Israel on Monday confirmed that it was pulling thousands of troops out of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said that five brigades, or several thousand troops will be taken out of Gaza in the coming weeks, according to a report by the Associated Press.
They said that some will return to their bases for further training or rest and many older reservists will go home. The Associated Press report highlighted that the ongoing 2023 Hamas-Israel war has taken a toll on the Israeli economy as it prevented reservists from going to their jobs, running their businesses or returning to university studies.
2023 Israel-Hamas War: Full Coverage
The troop drawdown, which was planned earlier, is also being seen as a step that could pave the way for a new long-term phase of lower-intensity fighting against the Hamas terrorist group.
Israel has also come under growing international pressure to scale back an offensive that has led to the deaths of nearly 22,000 Palestinians. Israel claims it has killed over 8,000 Hamas terrorists. Hamas says that out of the nearly 22,000 Palestinians killed in Israeli bombardment, two-thirds are women and children. It should be noted that the terrorist group does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
The announcement also comes ahead of the expected visit by Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, who earlier urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do more to protect Palestinian civilians.
Not Enough Credits
A report by news outlet Politico in December said that the US President Joe Biden’s administration told the Netanyahu government that his administration has until the end of 2023 to conclude its war in Gaza against Hamas.
When Blinken visited Israel that month, Israeli officials outlined their plans to the US diplomat and informed him that the fighting in southern Gaza would last for several months. An unhappy Blinken “tersely retorted”, according to Politico, and said: “You don’t have that much credit”.
The messaging from the Biden administration has been mixed. Even though Joe Biden said that the US will continue to support Israel and bypassed the US Congress to approve the $147.5 million sale of 155mm high-explosive artillery munitions and related equipment.
The US President at the White House Hanukkah celebrations last month said he is also a ‘Zionist’ but also told Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that public opinion can shift ‘overnight’.
“But, but, we have to be careful — they have to be careful. The whole world’s public opinion can shift overnight. We can’t let that happen,” Biden said, referring to the growing death toll in Gaza.
A separate report by the Financial Times released in December, cited American officials who said they expect Israelis to make a switch in tactics where they will shift from ground offensive to raids pursuing senior Hamas leaders. They also said the Israelis will pursue high-profile targets by the beginning of next year.
‘Throughout 2024’
IDF chief rear admiral Daniel Hagari did not say if 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 bloodiest ever Gaza war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
The militants also took around 250 people hostage that day, more than half of whom remain in Gaza according to Israeli officials.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a punishing offensive that has reduced vast areas of Gaza to a ruined wasteland and killed at least 21,978 people, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.
The Israeli army says 173 soldiers have been killed inside Gaza.
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