The IDF on Sunday announced that it had concluded the active invasion stage of the war for now while leaving open the possibility of a future new invasion of Rafah in deep southern Gaza.
In terms of IDF soldiers, this means that the IDF has withdrawn all of Division 98 from Khan Yunis in southern Gaza while maintaining one plus brigade—the Nahal brigade and portions of Brigade 401—in northern and central Gaza.
Although a top IDF official said that this change had nothing to do with US pressure, the timing was unmistakable in coming right after the IDF’s disastrous mistaken killing of seven humanitarian aid workers last week.
The decision also came less than two days after Israel opened the Erez Crossing and Ashdod port to transfer humanitarian aid, decisions made under threat by the US of potentially losing weapons support after Jerusalem had refused these requests from Washington for months.
Critically, this means that Palestinians can, on the one hand, move freely within southern Gaza and Khan Yunis and that there is a complete vacuum for preventing a return of Hamas governance. Still, the IDF is keeping northern and central Gaza cut off from the south.
This means Palestinians cannot move from south to north and that over two million Palestinians, more than half of whom are northern Gaza residents, remain separated from their communities, with somewhere between 150,000-300,000 Palestinians remaining in northern Gaza, who never left.
At one point, the IDF had five divisions, between 30,000 and 40,000 ground forces, deep into Gaza, as well as even larger forces circling the Strip.
Those forces were reduced significantly in mid-January when the IDF declared it had achieved operational control of northern Gaza and released Division 63 to return to Fits standard northern border duties facing off against Hezbollah.
But from December until now, Division 98 was destroying Hamas’s forces in and around Khan Yunis, at one point with around seven brigades.
By early February, Division 98 had achieved most of its mission, but it continued more minor operations in areas such as the Hamed neighborhoods of Khan Yunis.
It had been accepted conventional wisdom from top Israeli officials that a major reason for keeping Division 98 in Khan Yunis was to achieve concessions from Hamas in the hostage exchange negotiations.
