Israel's Gallant says battles in Gaza will not end soon, hints at preparations for war against Hezbollah

Shafaq News/ Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday denied reports claiming that the war against Hamas in Gaza is reaching an end, hinting at preparations for a front with Lebanon.

“The sense that we are stopping [the campaign against Hamas] is wrong,” he said while the Salah a-Din road in the central Gaza Strip.

“You are on the corridor; the meaning of this is that on both your sides, operations of a different kind will soon take place,” Gallant told troops of the 99th Division’s 646th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade, which are operating in the Strip’s center.

“To the north, we destroyed 12 Hamas battalions. Terrorists still remain, a few thousand of the 15,000 or 18,000 that were in the area. A large number of them were eliminated and others fled to the south,” Gallant added.

In northern Gaza, Gallant said, the army will continue to conduct smaller operations to root out the last Hamas fighters.

“The goal is to exhaust the enemy, kill [its operatives], and achieve a situation in which we control the territory,” he added. “In the south of the Gaza Strip the situation is different.”

He explained that the Israeli army is focused on what is above the Hamas tunnels in the Khan Younis area, “where senior Hamas officials are hiding, at great depths.”

“We are already reaching them… and it is happening already now,” Gallant said. "The fighting in southern Gaza will remain at high intensity.”

“The results will be clear results,” Gallant vowed. “We will end this campaign when Hamas does not function as a governing body and certainly not as a military framework… It will take time,” he says.

Gallant added that “at the same time, unfortunately, there are other threats, the first and most prominent of which is what is happening in the north,” referring to daily attacks by Hezbollah from Lebanon.