Thomas Grove and Carrie Keller-Lynn
WSJ, Jan. 17, 2024
“This war is continuing and will continue until the end, until we have hit all our goals,” Netanyahu said.”
Israel withdrew thousands of troops from Gaza following pressure from the U.S. to transition to a more surgical phase of its war against Hamas, a move that has sparked concerns among some Israeli officials that the pullout could leave the country vulnerable to another surge in militant activity.
The decision to withdraw one of Israel’s four divisions in Gaza provides Israel with more bandwidth to deploy forces to other flashpoints, such as unrest in the West Bank, that have emerged since the start of Israel’s invasion of Gaza. In drawing down its forces in the strip, however, Israel risks undermining its strategic goal of eradicating Hamas, exposing the country to renewed attacks.
Those concerns were underscored earlier this week when a heavy barrage of rockets was fired from central Gaza, according to the Israeli military, an area where the 36th Division had been operating until it was withdrawn a day earlier. The barrage was fired from a position a little more than a quarter mile from a group of Israeli forces, said the Israeli military’s head spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari.
Israel currently has three divisions battling in Gaza, with one each in Gaza’s north, center and southern zones, Hagari said. Its broadest deployment is in Hamas’s southern stronghold of Khan Younis, where Israel began fighting from the eastern part of the city and has now moved into the southern part of the city, he said. Hagari said the 36th Division was rotated out to rest and train.