Israel’s War in Gaza Enters Its Most Perilous Phase Yet

It’s laborious. “Underground, the defender has the edge. We’re working to cut it down," said Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfus, who commands the 98th Paratroopers Division of the Israeli military. He’s tasked with taking Khan Younis, the biggest city in the southern Gaza Strip and the army’s most complex challenge so far.

The tunnel was barely broader than his shoulders or taller than his helmet. “You want to avoid going chest-to-chest here," he said. His troops, still exploring the labyrinth, are aiming to outflank the Hamas militants who built it, maneuvering above and below ground to flush them out.

“It’s a messy business," Goldfus, a grizzled veteran of land, sea and airborne warfare, said of the battle underground.

The Israeli military largely controls the north of Gaza after heavy bombardment reduced much of its urban areas to rubble, along with many tunnels. Hamas’s battalions there were smashed, although pockets of resistance continue. Many thousands of civilians were killed too. Most of the population fled south.

But Israel’s progress in the south is facing a logjam. Its forces are closing in on a swollen population of displaced Palestinians who are running out of places to flee. An international outcry is mounting over the heavy toll of civilian deaths and injuries, raising pressure on Israel to change its tactics.

Nearly two million displaced civilians are being pushed into ever-fewer squares on Gaza’s chessboard. Hamas is able to move with them.

The process could culminate in a cease-fire that spares civilians but also allows Hamas to survive and recover, a strategic defeat for Israel. It also risks ending in an even greater bloodbath than in the north.

“Now that the people are clustered in the south, Israel can’t do what it did in the north without hundreds of thousands of deaths, something the U.S. is not going to support," said Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, a think tank in Washington.

At the same time, a political impasse between Israel’s government, the U.S. and key Arab countries over who should run Gaza after Hamas is also complicating the war. The lack of any government in Gaza is making it hard to deliver humanitarian aid, restore order and basic services, or facilitate the population’s return to the north. Israel’s military worries Hamas will try to exploit the vacuum and return to areas that the army vacates.

This month, Israel promised the U.S., its vital ally, that it would fight Hamas in a more targeted way in southern Gaza, reducing the intensity of airstrikes, which the U.S. had been pushing for. But the military is also under pressure in Israel not to let up on Hamas. Senior officers warn the fighting could take many more months.

Fleeing south

Many Palestinian civilians have no idea where they will end up.

Nasser Qassim left his home in Gaza City in the north, where he owned a perfume shop, on Oct. 8, after the Israeli military’s Facebook page warned of imminent airstrikes. The widower only had time to pack documents, food and money and drive away with his three children. The neighborhood was flattened hours later, he said.

Qassim later moved with his elderly parents, his brothers and their families to a bare house they owned in Khan Younis. Short of clothes, the family suffered from the winter cold. Qassim searched the city’s empty shops, eventually finding oversize clothing for his kids, but none for himself, he said.

Khan Younis was packed with refugees from the north. Soon, many were moving on, fearing the city was Israel’s next target. In mid-December, Qassim and his family moved farther south too. “We could hear clashes all the time," he said. “We left before the clashes got too intense."

He doesn’t know if his house in Khan Younis is still standing. “We know the area witnessed severe fighting," he said.

Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-biggest city, is where many senior Hamas leaders come from, including top leader Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. That day, the U.S.-designated terrorist group massacred some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 240 hostages.

Israeli officials believe Sinwar is hiding somewhere in the tunnels under Khan Younis, along with some of the remaining hostages.

The fight for the city began in December, when Israeli forces seized control of major access roads. Since then, the 98th Division has steadily pushed into its sandy eastern suburbs and compact city center. With seven full combat brigades, Goldfus now commands the biggest division in Israel’s history.

Like many Israeli soldiers, Goldfus expressed shame over Hamas’s success in slaughtering Israelis and others on Oct. 7. Israel’s vaunted military and intelligence agencies failed to prevent the attack on rural kibbutz communities, army bases and a music festival. The military’s reaction that day was slow and chaotic. The general took part in the effort to rally and drive back Hamas.

“On the 7th of October I failed to defend my people," said Goldfus as he crouched in a low tunnel beneath Khan Younis.

In a tunnel nearby, in cramped cells off a whitewashed corridor, the Israeli army says it found hair, clothing and personal effects of some of the hostages who were released in November.

“The maze here is much more vast and broader than in Gaza City," Goldfus said of Khan Younis’s underworld.

He said his operation was first and foremost a rescue mission for the remaining hostages. But so far, Israel has only been able to free one living hostage in Gaza through a military operation.

Above ground, the winter sun laid bare the impact of Israel’s firepower. Residences near the tunnel’s secret shaft had been smashed by shelling or pitted by machine guns. Some streets lay flattened by airstrikes. The thump of outgoing artillery and bursts of fire from a helicopter gunship carried far under the crisp blue sky.

“The intensity is there, but it’s focused, controlled. It’s not the same level as in the north," said Goldfus.

Army bulldozers had plowed the area’s sandy tracks into highways for Israeli armor. Tanks and armored personnel carriers rumbled to and from the border with Israel, churning up dust clouds until they parked behind protective berms of sand.

Inside one armored vehicle, the crosshairs on the gunner’s monitor scanned broken buildings along the route for any sign of Hamas. There was none.

Of Hamas’s four battalions in Khan Younis, Goldfus said his forces have destroyed or reduced the two in the city’s east. A battalion in the south is active, he said.

The fourth is in the west, embedded amid a population bulging with refugees. “We will have to make decisions," the general said.

Israeli units share a digital map, continually updated, of where the civilians are. Color-coded blocks show which districts are crowded with refugees and which have emptied out.

“When I maneuver, that’s taken into account," Goldfus said. “When I plan an operation, first I consider the military objective, then I consider the population and what means we can put into that effort."

“It’s a great pain when you know that you’ve accidentally killed civilians. You carry that with you," he said. He blamed Hamas for using the population as a shield, a charge Hamas has denied.

The Israeli military’s evacuation notices in Khan Younis also notify Hamas, he said. “I’m telling them I’m coming into an area. I know they will prepare."

Destruction from the air

Israeli ground forces stormed the north of Gaza after an intensive bombardment of every Hamas target the military could find.

A sergeant with the Israeli army’s 5th Brigade witnessed the destruction wrought from the air. Late last year his unit assaulted the dense Kasbah district of Beit Hanoun, a city in northeast Gaza.

“In the morning, before we went in, there was a massive amount of airstrikes," he said. “I saw complete devastation. It looked like a great earthquake had rocked the place."

He shared photos of his unit patrolling the Kasbah. The bombs had shattered most of the tightly packed houses. Some streets were reduced to low piles of stone and twisted steel. Tank tracks dug deep grooves in the muddy lanes. Children’s soft toys hung out of a window grating. No civilians remained. The whole population had fled Beit Hanoun.

Warnings of imminent strikes have been less comprehensive than in Israel’s previous, smaller wars in Gaza, say many residents of the enclave. The bombardment has led to lengthy phone and internet blackouts, making it harder to reach people. Leaflets dropped from the air have warned areas of coming ground assaults, but the news can take time to spread.

Over 24,000 Palestinians have died in Israel’s invasion of Gaza, most of them women and children, according to Palestinian health authorities. The figure doesn’t distinguish between militants and noncombatants. Israeli officials have said the overall estimate is roughly correct but that thousands of the dead were Hamas militants.

The Israeli military concedes that civilians are dying, particularly from airstrikes. It says it takes all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties and blames Hamas for embedding itself in the population.

Nearly no civilians are left in eastern Khan Younis. Most residents have fled to an area west of the city, which Israeli officers call a “safer area," but not a safe area.

The largest number of refugees have headed for Rafah on the Gaza Strip’s southern border. By now, many people have fled more than once.

Qassim’s family is now in Rafah, after fleeing the full length of the Gaza Strip. They were lucky: a friend let them use his house free of charge, a rarity in overcrowded Rafah, where rents have soared. Apartments that cost $200 a month before the war now cost $2,000, locals say.

Rafah’s prewar population of around 300,000 has ballooned to about 1.3 million. Most of the refugees live in tents. In parts of the city there’s no space left to pitch one.

Many people in Rafah fear it will become the scene of the final Israeli assault and Hamas’s last stand, with a mass of humanity caught between them.

Qassim said he is tired of running. He doesn’t want to end up in a tent in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, beyond the border at Rafah. Egypt insists it won’t let Israel push people across.

“I’ve done enough evacuations," said Qassim. “I’m not going anywhere after this, even if I will be killed."