Back in Gaza City again, IDF finds itself fighting ‘infrastructure,’ not terrorists

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — More than 650 days into the war with Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces is again battling the terror group in Gaza City.

Troops have pushed into the Daraj and Tuffah neighborhoods three times now, but army commanders say the latest offensive is being conducted with more force, in an attempt to finally “dismantle” Hamas’s battalion there.

If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is.

The IDF, since the beginning of the war, has pushed into areas of the Gaza Strip, claiming to dismantle Hamas’s local battalions, before being ordered to withdraw. Hamas has then regrouped, regained control of the regions the IDF had entered, and set up traps for the inevitable next time forces operate there.

Earlier this week, The Times of Israel joined the 46th Armored Battalion — operating under the Nahal Infantry Brigade — in Daraj, to see the latest offensive up close.

Unlike the previous 20-odd times this reporter had entered Gaza, this time we were taken into the Strip in Merkava tanks — which are normally intended for a team of four — and not in armored personnel carriers or Humvees.

This reporter was cramped between the loader and commander as the convoy of tanks rolled into Gaza City, passing row after row of razed homes in Israel’s two-kilometer (1.2-mile) deep buffer zone.

As we arrived at an army encampment, an unarmored excavator secured by two tanks and a platoon of infantry troops was busy demolishing a building.

According to Lt. Col. Aleph — who can only be identified by his first initial for security concerns — the commander of the tank battalion, the building was suspected to have contained a booby trap, like many others in this neighborhood.

A day earlier, Aleph said troops found in a nearby building a “communications box” with wires coming out of it and a bomb hidden next to it. The same kind of box was spotted by troops using a drone in the building that was being demolished.

Another nearby building, now mostly destroyed, had contained a dud Israeli Air Force missile that Hamas had rigged up, and one more structure next to the encampment was also believed to contain a booby trap and was to be demolished next, he said.

“This is what fighting a Hamas battalion looks like. There’s a certain number of operatives tasked with defending an area. Sometimes, they will come out of tunnels to attack if they have the opportunity. However, you mainly find yourself fighting against the infrastructure that they have prepared,” the battalion commander said.

Hamas’s Daraj-Tuffah Battalion “heavily relies on its infrastructure, which is mostly above ground, in the homes and yards, and a bit below ground as well,” he said. “And from here we derive our method. If you take away the infrastructure that can be used to harm your forces, you advance the mission of destroying the Hamas battalion.”

It is for this reason that the IDF says it is methodically demolishing nearly every single structure in the areas it is operating in. Not just in Daraj, but in 75% of the Strip that the military is currently holding. Recent army operations have seen the southern Gaza cities of Rafah and Khan Younis almost entirely razed to rubble.

However, there may be other reasons behind the demolitions, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly telling lawmakers in May that Israel is destroying homes in Gaza so Palestinians have no choice but to leave the Strip.

“Fighting an idea, trying to eliminate an idea, is impossible,” he said, referring to Hamas, “but you can kill those who hold that idea, or take away the capabilities that allow it to act effectively.”

Aleph’s forces had not yet encountered any Hamas operatives, nor any civilians, during its operations in Daraj. He said that they had identified, using drones, gunmen deeper within Gaza City and launched strikes on them. The troops have, of course, encountered dozens of booby-trapped homes.

But the battalion commander said he was operating under the assumption that at least 15 Hamas operatives were indeed hiding in his area of operations, inside tunnels that the forces had not yet found.

Earlier this month, the IDF announced that the latest commander of Hamas’s Daraj-Tuffah Battalion was killed in an airstrike in the area. Muhammad Ghaseen was only the second commander of the battalion since the beginning of the war; his predecessor, Rifaat Abbas, was killed in October 2023.

This leaves the Daraj-Tuffah Battalion to be headed by a company commander for now. The Hamas battalion no longer has hundreds of operatives in its ranks, and Israel’s buffer zone along the border with the Strip — where every structure has also been razed — means that the threat of a wide-scale invasion by the terror group from Daraj is far less likely.

Yet, the IDF is pushing into the Gaza City neighborhood with even more intensity than it did the previous two times it was here, reaching areas that it had not been in before.

Aleph suggested that the IDF’s previous operations in the neighborhood had to be more restrained, as Hamas was still holding hostages there who were released in the ceasefire deal earlier this year.

Asked how long it would take to dismantle the Daraj-Tuffah Battalion (now for the second or third time), the commander said, “It depends on how long [we are given] to conduct the mission.”

“If you leave us here for another month, a month and a half, I believe the battalion will be destroyed,” he claimed. Hostage families fear that their loved ones who have been in captivity for 658 days may not have that extra time.

At the current stage, Aleph said that the goal of establishing Israel’s buffer zone in the area to defend the Gaza border communities of Nahal Oz, Kfar Aza and others was more than 90% complete. Regarding the goal of destroying the Daraj-Tuffah Battalion, “We still have work to do,” he said.

“But beyond the return of the communities to the Gaza border area, this mission has the goal of creating the conditions for the return of the hostages; we are here for a moral mission,” the commander said.

The Israeli government has long asserted that military pressure is necessary to convince Hamas to release the remaining 50 hostages, roughly 20 of whom are still alive.

But the argument is receiving mounting pushback in recent months, as hostage talks have dragged out and as more Israelis back ending the war in exchange for the captives.

“We are creating the conditions” for hostage releases, Aleph insisted. “If you tell me there’s a deal, I’ll be wherever I’m needed to be.”