Israeli soldiers patrol in a tank near the Israel-Gaza border, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, on the Israeli side on April 7, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Israel’s military announced on April 7 it was drawing back some forces from a Hamas stronghold in southern Gaza following a major phase of its offensive, bringing troop presence in the territory to one of the lowest levels since the six-month war began.
The forces will recuperate and prepare for future operations while a significant number remain elsewhere in Gaza, said Israeli military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media. The 98th paratroopers division operated around Khan Younis, Israel’s main focus in recent months.
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Israel has vowed a ground offensive on the southernmost Gaza city of Rafah, considered Hamas’ last stronghold, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday told his Cabinet that victory means “elimination of Hamas in the entire Gaza Strip, including Rafah.”
But Rafah shelters some 1.4 million people — more than half of Gaza’s population. The prospect of an offensive has raised global alarm, including from top ally the U.S., which has demanded to see a credible plan to protect civilians.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told ABC the U.S. believes that the partial Israeli withdrawal “is really just about rest and refit for these troops that have been on the ground for four months and not necessarily, that we can tell, indicative of some coming new operation for these troops.”
Israel’s military quietly drew down troops in devastated northern Gaza earlier in the war.
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The six-month mark has been met with growing frustration in Israel, where anti-government protests have swelled and anger is mounting over what some see as government inaction to help free about 130 remaining hostages, about a quarter of whom Israel says are dead. Hamas-led militants took about 250 captives when they crossed from Gaza into Israel on Oct. 7 and killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
Negotiations in pursuit of a cease-fire in exchange for the hostages’ release were expected to resume in Cairo on Sunday. An Israeli delegation led by the head of the Mossad intelligence agency was due to depart for Cairo, according to an Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the matter with the media.
“Israel is prepared for a deal; Israel is not prepared to surrender,” Mr. Netanyahu said, and asserted that international pressure on Israel “is only causing Hamas to harden its positions.”
Pressure rose for action now.
“This doesn’t seem a war against terror. This doesn’t seem anymore a war about defending Israel. This really, at this point, seems it’s a war against humanity itself,” Chef Jose Andres told ABC, days after an Israeli airstrike killed seven of his World Central Kitchen colleagues in Gaza. Aid deliveries on a crucial new sea route to the territory were suspended.
“Humanity has been all but abandoned” in Gaza, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement marking six months of war.
The UN and partners now warn of “imminent famine” for more than 1 million people in Gaza as humanitarian workers urge Israel to loosen restrictions on the delivery of aid overland, the only way to meet soaring needs as some Palestinians forage for weeds to eat.
Mothers who have given birth in Gaza since the war began are especially vulnerable.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said the bodies of 38 people killed in Israel’s bombardment had been brought to the territory’s remaining functional hospitals in the past 24 hours. It said 33,175 have been killed since the war began. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants but says two-thirds of the dead are children and women.
Six months of Israel-Hamas war: revisiting 10 key moments in pictures
At dawn on October 7, at the end of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, hundreds of Hamas fighters infiltrate Israel from Gaza by land, sea and air. They kill civilians in the streets, in their homes and at a desert music festival, and attack troops in army bases. They bring around 250 hostages back to Gaza, some of them now dead. Israel vows to destroy Hamas and begins bombing Gaza.
On October 13, Israel calls on civilians in northern Gaza to move south within 24 hours, declaring the north, which includes Gaza City, a war zone. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flee to the south of the Gaza Strip as entire districts in the north are razed to the ground.
On October 27, Israeli tanks roll into Gaza at the start of a ground offensive. The troops fight their way towards Gaza City.
On November 15, Israeli troops launch a night-time raid on Al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s biggest medical facility where bodies had been piling up after food, fuel and anaesthetics ran out. The raid causes an international outcry. Israel claims Hamas is running a command centre below the hospital, which the armed group denies.
This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows an overview Al Shifa hospital and surroundings in Gaza City on April 1, 2024. In March, Israel again targets the hospital in an intensive two-week operation that leaves hundreds dead and the complex in ruins.
On November 24, a week-long truce between Israel and Hamas negotiated in talks mediated by Qatar goes into effect. Hamas releases 80 Israeli hostages over seven days in return for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Twenty-five other hostages, mainly Thai farm workers, are released outside of the deal.
In this photo provided by the Israeli Army, Emily Hand, a released hostage, reunites with her father on November 26, 2023, in Israel.
As part of week-long truce, Israel allows more aid into Gaza during the pause but the humanitarian situation remains dire. When the war resumes, Israel expands its actions into southern Gaza. Seen here are Palestinian children running as they flee from Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on November 6, 2023.
On January 12, the US and Britain launch air strikes on targets in rebel-held Yemen after weeks of attacks on Red Sea shipping by the Iran-backed Houthis acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The strikes add to fears of a regional war.
In an interim ruling on January 26 in a case brought by South Africa, the International Court of Justice finds it “plausible” that Israel’s acts could amount to “genocide”. The world’s top court orders Israel to do “everything” to prevent any acts of genocide in Gaza but stops short of ordering a halt to the war.
On February 29, Israeli forces open fire on desperate residents of northern Gaza who rush towards a convoy of food aid trucks, saying they believed they “posed a threat”. Gaza’s health ministry says 115 people were shot dead and hundreds wounded in what it calls a “massacre”.
At dawn on October 7, at the end of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, hundreds of Hamas fighters infiltrate Israel from Gaza by land, sea and air. They kill civilians in the streets, in their homes and at a desert music festival, and attack troops in army bases. They bring around 250 hostages back to Gaza, some of them now dead. Israel vows to destroy Hamas and begins bombing Gaza.
Humanitarian aid is airdropped to Palestinians over Gaza City, Gaza Strip on March 25, 2024.
The US, Jordan and other countries begin airdropping food into Gaza. On March 15, the first food shipment along a new maritime corridor arrives in Gaza.
On April 2, seven aid workers from the US charity World Central Kitchen are killed in an Israeli strike when leaving a warehouse in central Gaza where they had just unloaded a portion of food aid from a ship. The dead are Australian, British, Palestinian, Polish and US-Canadian.
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Israel’s military continued to suffer losses, including in Khan Younis, where the military said four soldiers were killed. Over 600 Israeli soldiers have been killed since October 7, including 260 in the Gaza ground operation, according to Israel’s government.
Concerns about a wider regional conflict continued as a top Iranian military adviser warned Israel that none of its embassies were safe following last week’s strike in Damascus — blamed on Israel — that killed two elite Iranian generals and flattened an Iranian consular building.
“None of the embassies of the [Israeli] regime are safe anymore,” Gen. Rahim Safavi, a military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted as saying by the semi-official Tasnim agency.
Israel has not directly acknowledged its involvement. Netanyahu said Israel was prepared for any response. “Whoever harms us or plans to harm us, we will harm them,” he said.
