Press Briefing by IDF Spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, January 29th, 2024

Good evening. 136 hostages are still being held in Gaza. If you are hearing me now, we have not forgotten you. We think about you all the time. No one has given up, and no one will give up. There is a tremendous national effort, and our role in the IDF, along with other security organizations, is to create the conditions to bring everyone back. We will continue to operate in all efforts to fulfill this mission.

In recent weeks, we have focused our operational activity in the Khan Yunis area. This evening, I will explain our activity. Khan Yunis serves as the Hamas capital in the southern strip. It spans an area of 54 square kilometers, under which a complex and branched underground infrastructure of tens of kilometers has been built. It is a dense area, saturated with population, including villages, agricultural areas, and many neighborhoods. Under the Khan Yunis Brigade, four Hamas battalions operated. In recent weeks, IDF forces have been operating in a focused manner, dismantling the military frameworks of the Hamas battalions. We have already dismantled two battalions in eastern Khan Yunis, and we are now operating in the west. Many commanders have been eliminated, have fled, surrendered, or been arrested, and the remaining terrorists are carrying out unorganized terrorist acts. Throughout Khan Yunis, we have eliminated over 2,000 terrorists above and below ground. In addition, we destroyed significant underground infrastructures, where we found facilities for holding hostages, command centers, weapons, manufacturing infrastructures, and intelligence materials. The 98th division operates in the area with infantry brigades, commando, armor, engineering, special units, and the ISA alongside them.

Shoulder to shoulder in combined action above and underground simultaneously. This is a new method of operation that includes advanced technology with unique components, some of which are in use for the first time. In the past week in west Khan Yunis, we eliminated hundreds of terrorists and detained more than 300 suspects in terrorist activity, taken for interrogation by the security forces. These detained suspects provide us with very valuable intelligence about Hamas infrastructure in Gaza in general and in the Khan Yunis area in particular. We are eliminating and detaining terrorists in tunnels and in their hiding places. In recent days, during an underground maneuver of Yahalom Unit soldiers along with ISA forces, in one of Hamas's significant tunnels, the soldiers broke through a blast door. Behind the door, hid three Hamas terrorists who surrendered to our forces. An action that took place underground. The terrorists were transferred to ISA interrogation and are providing valuable information for the future. Efforts like this one led to the arrest of terrorists involved in the brutal massacre on October 7, who hid in the Khan Yunis area. Alongside the ground forces' operational activity, the Air Force carried out hundreds of strikes using aircrafts- on Hamas targets, including military positions, weapons storages, observation posts, and real-time targets that threatened our troops security in the area, and the Air Force struck them.

With the start of the strikes, we opened humanitarian corridors to allow residents to leave the combat area and prevent Hamas from using them as human shields. Although Hamas tries to prevent the residents from leaving, approximately 100,000 residents have already temporarily evacuated from western Khan Yunis alone. Alongside this, we are focusing our efforts on the task of thwarting Hamas launch attempts such as the one that occurred earlier today. We thwarted dozens of rocket launch attempts and will continue this effort. I urge you to continue to obey the updated instructions of the Home Front Command, they save lives. We are continuing the operational activity in the Khan Yunis area, we have more operational tasks to dismantle the military frameworks of the other Hamas battalions, we will continue to deepen the achievement there.

Alongside this, the 162nd Division is operating in the rest of the strip in the center and north. During the night, the brigade operated in the northern strip on terror targets in Al-Shati and additional areas. The operational activity was carried out by surprise, in just a few hours, one force arrived from north to south and a second force from south to north along the coastal axis through the city center and up to Shifa Hospital. An operation that used to take us a long time took only a few hours. Meanwhile, during the operation, more than 30 terrorists were eliminated overnight. We continue to operate there tonight. We have the endurance and readiness for a long fight. Alongside the offensive effort, the Gaza Division continues to operate along the border in defense and operational missions. It is important for me to clarify – there is no change in the rules of engagement. The IDF operates according to guidelines not to allow any entity to reach the security border fence. The rules of engagement and force deployment policy allow troops to fulfill their mission while preventing incidents of our forces shooting at our forces or harming Israeli civilians, including hostages who might reach the area. The war is long, requiring patience, professionalism, and thoroughness in all areas. We continue to refresh our forces to ensure endurance and the forces' fitness. For example, the operational activity I described earlier in the northern strip in Al-Shati is carried out by three brigades, one of them a reserve brigade that returned to operate in Gaza after a period of refreshment at home. We will continue to refresh both reserve and regular troops. I know the families at home are very much waiting for this. Refreshing the troops is important to us, the commanders with them in the field know this. We will do it when the operational situation allows.

In recent days, the weather has been wintery. The Technological and Logistics Directorate and the Southern Command are dealing with the weather conditions and are making sure to ensure that the soldiers’ equipment in the field, from clothing to food to medical equipment, allows them to operate optimally and maintain their personal security.