Israeli airstrikes in Gaza have killed dozens of Hamas commanders as troops advance deeper into the battered territory, with some fighting in “the heart of Gaza City”, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) officials and analysts have said.
However, there were doubts over the importance of the dead commanders within Hamas, and analysts said there was no obvious sign that the organisation had yet been significantly weakened.
Israeli leaders swore to crush Hamas after the extremist Islamist organisation launched terrorist attacks from Gaza into southern Israel, killing 1,400 people in their homes and at a dance party on 7 October. Most of those who died were civilians, and including many young children and older people.
Since then, an Israeli ground and air offensive has wrought massive destruction across Gaza, displacing at least 1.3 million people and killing 10,569 – including 4,324 children and 2,823 women – according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry in the territory.
Analysts said the mission of the Israeli armed forces is to kill all the senior leaders of Hamas, to destroy its capacity to pose any future threat.
“Right now the IDF is trying to translate the terms ‘erasing’ or ‘crushing’ Hamas into concrete results, so that means destroying all military infrastructure and killing leaders, not just the heads of brigade, field commanders and so on but also the members of the political bureau too,” said Dr Michael Milstein, a Hamas expert at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University.
Hamas spokesmen have denied Israeli forces had made major advances. “I challenge [Israel] if it has been able, to this moment, to record any military achievement on the ground other than killing civilians,” the senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad told Al Jazeera television.
On Tuesday, an IDF spokesperson said that Israel had killed Mohsen Abu Zina, “one of Hamas’s leading weapons developers and an expert in developing strategic weapons and rockets used by Hamas terrorists”.
A day earlier, the IDF said it had killed a “battalion commander” responsible for sending elite units into Israel on 7 October. Three weeks ago Aimen Nowfil, a member of Hamas’s top military command committee and one of its most senior leaders, died in an airstrike. The death of Nowfil was confirmed by Hamas.
However, Israel’s primary targets – the political leader Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, the leader of Hamas’s military wing in Gaza – are still alive.
Sinwar, 61, has been repeatedly described as a “dead man walking” by Israeli military officials.
In a televised address on Tuesday, the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said that Sinwar was hiding in a bunker, “out of touch with his surroundings”. Deif is also believed to be underground.
Milstein said that Hamas was still stable, and that casualties suffered so far were heavy but had yet to “undermine the structure” of the organisation.
“You cannot implement the goal of causing severe damage to Hamas without killing the top leaders. It is like the US in Iraq in 2003. Until you get Saddam you can’t consider the war an achievement,” he told the Guardian.
The IDF attack that caused significant civilian casualties in the Jabalia refugee camp also killed Ibrahim Biari, a senior Hamas commander and one of the architects of the 7 October attack, Israeli officials have claimed.
“Israelis went ahead with the bombing in Jabaliya camp because they knew there was a high value target there and so were not concerned by collateral damage,” said Bilal Saab, an expert at Chatham House in London.
Israeli officials accuse Hamas of using civilians to shield leaders and key infrastructure, releasing images on Wednesday that appear to show tunnel entrances close to an amusement park with a large ferris wheel.
The vast tunnel network built by Hamas under the densely populated territory poses a significant challenge to the Israeli effort.
“At some point they are going to have to go deep into the tunnels and find these people and that is where it gets messy,” said Saab.
Hamas leaders have said the 7 October attacks were aimed to “change the entire equation and not just have a clash”.
“We succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the table, and now no one in the region is experiencing calm,” Khalil al-Hayya, a member of Hamas’s top leadership body, told the New York Times in Doha, Qatar.
“What could change the equation was a great act, and, without a doubt, it was known that the reaction to this great act would be big.”
Palestinian media reported clashes between militants and Israeli forces near al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City and Hamas’s armed wing said its fighters had destroyed an Israeli tank in Gaza City. There was no independent verification of this claim.
Israel said on Wednesday two further IDF soldiers had been killed in the offensive, bringing the total to at least 30.
The more than 240 hostages taken by Hamas on 7 October and thought to be held in the tunnels further complicates the Israeli military operation.
Israel said it will not agree to a ceasefire until the hostages are released. Hamas said it will not stop fighting while Gaza is under attack.
The fighting is concentrated in the north of the Gaza Strip and Israel has repeatedly told civilians to flee to the south, but it has been bombing southern areas as well.
In the main southern city Khan Younis, six Palestinians, including a young girl, were killed in a house that was hit, medics said.
The UN says Gaza’s health system is close to collapse, with remaining hospitals short of medicines and fuel.
“The longer we wait, the worse some patients will get. Many people will die merely because they have no access to treatment,” said Osama Qadoumi, the supervisor at Makassed hospital.
One reason Israel has denied access to fuel supplies into Gaza – despite the acute humanitarian need – is a belief that it will be used to power systems that supply air and light to the underground network of bunkers where Hamas leaders are sheltering, officials said. Hamas has denied such claims.
