The 98th Division, the elite counter-terrorism unit, has left Khan Younis only eight days after raiding the largest city in the Gaza Strip, during which it located and rescued the bodies of hostages Sergeant Major (Res.) Ravid Aryeh Katz, Maya Goren, Oren Goldin, Staff Sgt. Tomer Yaakov Ahimas and Sgt. Kiril Brodski from a tunnel. Watch the footage of the IDF taking down a terrorist in a tunnel:
IDF kills terrorist in tunnel
(Video: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
On Saturday, the soldiers began advancing toward a Hamas battalion located in an area that the IDF had yet to operate in, between Khan Younis and Rafah. The IDF had expected the division would have to stay in the area for several more weeks with additional divisions that were supposed to join the operation.
In April, the IDF withdrew from Khan Younis after severely damaging the local Hamas battalions. According to the 98th Division, it has completed its objective: defeating the Khan Younis Brigade in Hamas by destroying 75% of its capabilities. In total, the forces located and destroyed about 100 km of tunnels in the city, as well as in raids carried out in Jabaliya and Shijaiyah.
"We discovered a vast network of tunnels, you could enter a tunnel near the Erez Crossing in the north of the Gaza Strip and exit in Rafah in the south," the army said. According to sources, "At the beginning of the ground incursion, an Israeli hostage happened to encounter Sinwar, who passed through some tunnel underground while she was being transferred there, and then he continued to his living quarters."
The division was very close during the operations in Khan Younis to capturing the Hamas leader, who was walking around in flip-flops and unarmed. Hamas often uses hidden doors with double hinges that are easily destroyed, which makes it difficult to pass in the underground chases that the IDF conducted against senior members of the terrorist group.
Hamas was unprepared to fight in the tunnels, since it planned to just use them for three purposes: survival, resting and movement. The IDF does not rule out that Sinwar may have emerged for air after 10 months of fighting. Some of the Hamas terrorists were unable to cope with the prolonged stay underground in the extreme heat due to the IDF damaging the tunnel's energy infrastructure. At least three terrorists left the living quarters, piled up their weapons and waited for the soldiers to arrest them.
"The enemy is also changing and eager to operate in the tunnels with small cells, so we established a special operations team in the 98th Division that brings together all possible intelligence sources, including the Shin Bet, to try and fool Hamas in the tunnels. We also trap the terrorists in the tunnels and then eliminate them," according to the IDF.
"As the months pass, we extract a lot of important information during interrogation from the subjects we arrest and over time also know how to ask the right questions," the IDF noted,
Along with locating some of the hostages, the division, under the command of Brigadier General Dan Goldfuss, destroyed 15 Hamas command and control complexes in Khan Younis. In total, 182 soldiers in the division have been killed, and 3,000 soldiers were injured.
"The division is well prepared. The soldiers who left Gaza and the commanders feel capable of carrying out any mission. Returning the hostages from Gaza will deprive Hamas of leverage, and today we have achieved freedom of action to operate on the ground anywhere in the Strip," according to the IDF.