On Monday, the Israeli military announced plans to reinvade Khan Yunis, a densely populated city,  issuing an evacuation order for around 250,000 displaced refugees. This move suggests that Israel has not succeeded in defeating Palestinian armed groups despite claiming near victory in Rafah.

Refugees from Khan Yunis have fled to Muwasi, a crowded, unsanitary tent city where Israeli airstrikes have repeatedly hit, most recently killing 12 and injuring dozens. According to the UN, 1.9 million Palestinians are now concentrated in central Gaza.

Israel has also claimed that its invasion of Rafah is winding down, expected to conclude within a month. However, Major General Yitzhak Brik has criticized this narrative, stating:

“We lost greatly in the Gaza Strip… The army is exhausted, there is no ammunition, the vehicles are tired, and we are losing reserve soldiers who say they will not join the service again. There are false stories about the army killing dozens or hundreds of Hamas fighters in every battle. Every soldier who fought in Gaza knows this.”

The Israeli military claims to have killed 900 Palestinian fighters in its Rafah invasion operation. However, a military source close to al-Qassam told MintPress that this figure was “absolutely incorrect” and that “the enemy wants to convince their public that they were successful.” The source did not provide an estimate for the actual number of fighters killed.

The reinvasion of Khan Yunis marks a crucial admission that the Israeli army failed to defeat Hamas in the city. Currently, no evidence suggests that any of the 11 Palestinian armed groups operating in the besieged coastal enclave have been defeated. Furthermore, Israel has not provided any numbers for how many fighters from other factions have allegedly been killed.

Last week, the Israeli military also re-entered the Shujaiyeh neighborhood near Gaza City in the north of the territory. After enduring tough battles in December, during which Palestinian factions inflicted heavy losses on Israeli soldiers, Israel claimed victory in the area. Despite this, Hamas, which was supposedly defeated there, has since engaged in over 100 clashes with the Israeli military. These ambush operations have caused numerous soldier casualties that Israel has acknowledged. The quality of the videos documenting these attacks appears to have improved rather than degraded.

Israel faced a similar shock when re-invading the Jabalia Refugee Camp in northern Gaza in May. Palestinian armed groups changed their strategy and inflicted heavy losses on Israeli forces, contradicting previous claims of operational control and victory over Hamas. The change in tactics, which now involved direct confrontations to prevent civilian kidnappings, resulted in higher fighter casualties but demonstrated that Palestinian factions remain undefeated.

After besieging al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, asserting that it was home to a Hamas headquarters, even releasing CGI footage of an alleged multilayered tunnel system underneath the territory’s largest medical complex, the failure to produce any evidence for their claims was followed by an Israeli invasion of Khan Yunis in December. Israeli leaders, past and present, claimed around this time that the “real Hamas headquarters” was in Khan Yunis, a claim which has also never been proven.

Despite this, the Israeli army remained in the city for months, focusing on the Nasser Medical Complex, which has now been rendered inoperable after multiple invasions. When Israeli forces finally withdrew from Nasser Hospital, first responders and journalists discovered crudely dug mass graves containing approximately 300 civilian bodies. The predicted repercussions of another invasion of Khan Yunis include further civilian casualties and ongoing battles between the Israeli army and Palestinian armed groups that were purportedly defeated months ago.

Feature photo | Palestinians evacuate and flee their homes after the Israeli army issued a new evacuation order ahead of a new military operation east of Khan Yunis, July 02, 2024. Abed Rahim Khatib | AP

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47

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