BICOM

What’s happened: Israeli Defence Minister Gallant has authorised providing Israeli electricity to Gaza’s water desalination plant. Without this plant being operational, there is a danger that the lack of safe drinking water will provoke a further humanitarian crisis in the Strip.

• Reports suggest that two weeks ago, Gallant gave the green light to the Israel Electric Corporation to do this via COGAT. The desalination plant is operated by the UN and the Palestinian Water Ministry, which is ostensibly separate from Hamas.
• Meanwhile, IDF Chief of Staff Halevi spoke yesterday on the progress made in Rafah. Of Hamas’s Rafah brigade, he said: “We are counting what we saw with our eyes: 900 killed, among them commanders. And the reason that we are still here, week after week, is because of the effort to destroy the infrastructure. We are exhausting the other side and we are completing our tasks. There is a lot of will, there is a lot patience and persistence, and the results will speak for themselves.”
• IDF operations in the Strip continue, especially in the areas of Shejaiya, Rafah, and central Gaza. The IDF reports that “in the area of Shejaiya, IDF troops eliminated terrorists, located weapons, and dismantled terror infrastructure sites. Over the past day, the IAF struck and dismantled over 50 terror infrastructure sites. Moreover, during targeted raids, IDF troops located operational tunnel shafts and weaponry, including AK-47 rifles, grenades, magazines, and additional military equipment.”
• “Furthermore, IDF troops continue operational activities in central Gaza, where terrorists who posed a threat to IDF troops were eliminated in IAF strikes.”
• “The IDF is continuing a targeted, intelligence-based operational activity in the Rafah area. In cooperation with IDF ground troops, the IAF dismantled several terror infrastructure sites and eliminated terrorists in the area.”
• The IDF yesterday announced that two soldiers had died fighting in the Strip on Monday. Master Sgt. (res.) Nadav Elchanan Knoller, 30, and Maj. (res.) Eyal Avnion, 25, were killed during operations in central Gaza, The two deaths bring the total number of IDF casualties since October 7^th to 674. Of these, 320 have been killed since the beginning of the ground operation in Gaza.
• Yesterday the IDF targeted over 30 sites in the Strip, with fighter jets, attack helicopters, and drones supporting ground forces.
• Overnight Monday, the IDF also targeted a series of airstrikes on Khan Yunis, having first instructed the civilian population to move to humanitarian zones. The strikes targeted areas from which Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired a barrage of 20 rockets at Israel on Monday.

Context: The IDF continues to move away from the high intensity phases of fighting in Gaza, and towards the war’s Phase Three.

• As it does so, it is looking to learn from previous experiences in both Gaza and Lebanon, where permanent troop presences have given Israel’s enemies the opportunity to surprise its forces.
• Instead, this phase will see the IDF withdraw from most civilian areas, and focus on targeted, intelligence-based raids against senior Hamas commanders, terror cells planning imminent attacks, and any cells looking to reconstitute Hamas’s fighting force.
• While withdrawing from most areas, the IDF will look to hold the Netzarim and Philadelphi corridors, and to stabilise the Israel-Gaza border. The Netzarim corridor essentially bisects the Strip, from Kibbutz Beeri to the Mediterranean Sea. The control of the Netzarim ensures the IDF’s medium-term control of the Strip, prevents Hamas from redeploying in the north, and incentivises Hamas to agree to a hostage deal with the return of northern Gazans to their home areas a feature.
• However, leaving troops in this corridor potentially exposes them to attacks from both northern and southern Gaza.
• Despite the IDF’s many operational achievements in Gaza, it acknowledges that Hamas retains the ability to fight but stresses that it now does so as a guerilla force rather than through organised military brigades.
• The IDF also estimated this week that around 1.9 million of the Gaza Strip’s 2.5 million population were currently residing in designated humanitarian zones.
• With talks over a hostage deal currently stuck, there is hope that the move to Phase Three of the war might satisfy Hamas’s demand that any hostage release accompany and ‘end’ to the war. While insisting that Phase Three does not signal the end of the war, there is some hope that Hamas might concede that the end of high-intensity fighting satisfies its conditions.
• In parallel, there remains high concern over the prospect of war with Hezbollah in the north, though there is hope that if a hostage and ceasefire arrangement is reached in the south, it could also be honoured in the north as well, preventing a wider conflagration.
• Reports from the US this week alleged that the military establishment is prepared to call a full ceasefire if doing so would result in the successful release of the hostages, but that Prime Minister Netanyahu is opposed.
• Referring to the sources who spoke to the New York Times, Netanyahu said “I don’t know who those unnamed parties are, but I’m here to make it unequivocally clear: it won’t happen… We will end the war only after we have achieved all of its goals, including the elimination of Hamas and the release of all our hostages.”
• The IDF also responded, saying it would “continue fighting Hamas across the Gaza Strip,” “alongside continuing to improve our readiness for a war in the north, and defending all of our borders.”
• COGAT reported 303 trucks carrying humanitarian goods were transferred to Gaza yesterday, 264 through the Kerem Shalom Crossing and 39 via the Erez Crossing.

Looking ahead: The army is preparing to place underground sensors along the border with Egypt, to prevent Hamas and other groups from re-digging smuggling tunnels which the IDF has destroyed.

• Israel is also looking to upgrade the Rafah crossing, through which the bulk of Hamas’s arms smuggling has taken place in recent years.
• Netanyahu is still expected to travel to the US to address both Houses of Congress at the end of the month, when he is now also expected to meet with President Biden.