On video: IDF forces in the Hamed neighborhood, Khan Yunis/IDF spokesman
After Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, during which the IDF launched an operation against Hamas and destroyed the tunnels and terrorist infrastructure, the Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani decided to donate hundreds of millions of dollars to the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. prestigious within the city of Khan Yunis, eight 124 buildings with a height of 6 floors, 1,060 apartment units in various configurations, a combination of a mosque, two schools and parks and the rest of the money hospitals. With the completion of construction, senior Hamas officials and their families lived in buildings with a luxurious lobby in a neighborhood located in the southern Gaza Strip The same Par neighborhood became a village of ruins after the IDF entered as part of the ground maneuver to completely dismantle the Hamas terrorist infrastructure in the neighborhood.
IDF forces in Hamad neighborhood in Khan Yunis/IDF spokesman
At the height of the IDF's fighting in the Khan Yunis area, the Shin Bet uncovered a concentration of senior operatives hiding in the heart of "the city of Hamed" and among them a number of cards of critical intelligence value for understanding the area, locating the infrastructure and the operational patterns of the military arm of Hamas with the possibility of revealing information about the abductees.
The Shin Bet officials made it clear to the commanders in the Southern Command that there are more than 10,000 Palestinians in the area who thought that the neighborhood was protected from attacks for a number of reasons including the fact that it was established with Qatari funding and so far, the IDF has not really operated in it except for a number of airstrikes at the beginning of a division's ground maneuver 98 under the command of Brigadier General Dan Goldfuss at the end of December. "It was clear to us that there was a high concentration of armed men there and that there were intelligence assets there that we wanted with us.
Clear names," said a military official who was involved in the planning of the operation on the neighborhood.
The architectural plan of the neighborhood was laid out before Brigadier General Goldfuss, Givati Brigade commander Col. Liran Batito, 7th Brigade Col. Elad Tzuri and the Commando Brigade Col. Omer Cohen and together they planned the story of the ruse that would serve as the basis of the operation and to achieve the goals of the operation. The Shin Bet pointed out that although the scope of terrorists remaining in the neighborhood does not operate in a battalion or company framework, the various squads in the buildings have command and control capabilities and a very large scope of weapons including A tunnel infrastructure that helps him move from place to place.
"The ability of the forces in the neighborhood to carry out an organized attack on the forces is low and they are still able to pose a real threat to the forces using anti-tank missiles, many explosives, sniper rifles and hiding in apartments armed with guns, grenades and explosives," explained one of the security officials who accompanied the forces "You may very well see a high concentration of terrorists in one building, but they don't really know each other.
They simply fled to the neighborhood because they thought it was a shelter area, a protected neighborhood that the IDF would not attack."
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Division 98 commander Dan Goldfuss in Khan Yunis/IDF spokesman
Brigadier General Goldfuss decided on the methods of action and as soon as all the commanders of the brigade combat teams approved the required level of accuracy and speed to meet the conditions of the operation, it was decided that the special forces, including the 13th Squadron that took part in the operation, would conduct exercises on the method of combat at construction sites in Ofakim and routes on the method of combat. "The operational idea included a quick attack from all kinds of directions, at the same time including a smart encirclement that you can't see the whole thing from everywhere, on very fast schedules, so the matter of accuracy was critical," explained a security official.
Brigadier General Goldfuss decided that despite the desire to maintain secrecy and trickery, there It is essential to combine even in the first hours the chariot tanks of the 7th Brigade and the Tiger APCs of the Givati Brigade in order to achieve a greater effect on the hiding terrorists. In addition, geographical points were determined, where the forces would arrive and schedules in less than twenty minutes. In addition, it was decided That the precise fire from the ground and from the air would accompany the entry of the troops in time. "A line of fire before the quick maneuver," one of the officers in the commando brigade described the operation. "If you weren't there and didn't see the fire ahead, you wouldn't understand how precise it was.
Nut went in when the first phase of the maneuver was at its peak.
The combination between the ground maneuver and the fire left no possibility for the terrorists to escape even not underground.
As soon as they raised their heads and realized that the IDF raided the neighborhood it was already too late."
Commander of the Givati Brigade, Col. Liron Batito, in Hamad neighborhood in Khan Yunis/Amir Bohbot, IDF spokesman
The terrorists did not know what had befallen them
In less than 15 minutes, with a speed that later drew much praise from the Southern Command, the encirclement was completed.
When the fighters of the Givati patrol and the commandos announced on the communication network that they had reached the predetermined points and were protected, the division commander decided to order the introduction of drones with powerful loudspeakers, from which the calls in Arabic for the Palestinians to move south towards the "drain" in the command of the 7th brigade, where they managed to locate terrorists who were trying to escape and one " The cards" that the Shin Bet and Amman wanted very much in order to understand the operational situation in the region.
In total, more than 300 terrorists were located through the "drain" alone, among them Nokhaba operatives and fighters from Hamas battalions from various areas in the Gaza Strip.
"When the terrorists tried to get smart and escape from an area that was not designated as a 'drain', tanks or the 'zikims' (unmanned aerial vehicles) opened fire on them," explained a senior officer in the 98th Division. "In the first twenty minutes, almost twenty armed terrorists were killed, which we actually saw They skip with weapons.
All the forces acted like an orchestra.
Some of them entered the northern part of the neighborhood and from there with accurate arrows towards the areas where the enemy is concentrated.
You could write a book about it.
We started with a fire strike of 6-7 minutes that included the dropping of 55 munitions from fighter planes.
Not including the artillery in the area.
The Shin Bet
personnel said that the investigation revealed that the terrorists were very surprised by the very arrival of the IDF in the area and the manner in which they penetrated into the heart of the neighborhood. Apparently, the neighborhood was supposed to be empty of civilians since a few months ago an operation was carried out to move the population from the Khan Yunis area to shelters in Rafah and south of the Gaza River. After two days, during which civilians left the buildings and moved south through the "drain", the commander of the Southern Command, Major General Yaron Finkelman, confirmed the beginning of movement towards the buildings.
Agoz unit activity in the Hamed neighborhood, Khan Yunis/IDF spokesman
The operation of raiding buildings was preceded by intelligence work by the Shin Bet coordinators, who led the forces. "They sat with the interrogators in the field.
One map in Hebrew and a second map in Arabic, and they lack significant information about what is happening in the buildings.
They pointed out locations and a Shin Bet investigator translated for us and explained where everything was. The information was passed on to the coordinator who accompanied the commando forces. Every few hours a situation assessment was carried out and information was passed from the investigators in the field to the forces," said a senior officer in Division 98. "This way every force knows where it is Goes and what awaits him. At the level of how many terrorists, on which floor, how many and what weapons, and where they placed explosive charges. At this level there is an RPG and here there is a shaft. That's why the closing of the circles was quick."
Despite the public criticism of the slow maneuvering in the Khan Yunis area, it was decided to carry out the raid on the buildings in stages according to the "dictation from above" which included engineering activity with a bulldozer, a drone scan, then a stinger dog, and only then entering the building with fire and only then a visual scan.
In some cases terrorists came out with raised hands when the dog of the Sting Unit hit them and in some cases they opened fire at the forces.
At the beginning of the maneuver in the neighborhood full of buildings, the main fighting was against concentrations of terrorists and then the encounters began at point blank range.
The fighters of the Givati Patrol, Magellan, Agoz and Sheyat 13 encountered from point blank range armed terrorists, anti-tank missiles and guns.
In some cases they are attacked in their apartments.
When a fire breaks out in the apartment, they go up to the roof to escape and then there is a helicopter gunship waiting for them that attacks them.
About sixty terrorists were killed at point blank range," said a senior officer from the 98th Division. "It was a combined battle.
Armor, engineering, infantry, commando, air force and intelligence."
The air support was divided into two main operations.
The commanders of the brigade combat teams submitted targets to the Air Force for attack by fighter jets which was carried out within 24 hours from the moment of the request.
In total, throughout the operation there were more than 150 combat targets.
Alongside this, flash targets: a brigade commander's requirement to attack a target by a fighter jet in less than twenty minutes.
The pace was dizzying and yet within a few days criticism was heard from the commando brigade that the level of availability of the aircraft was not high.
"The findings in the apartments were varied. In some of them we found a range of weapons suitable for a department store. Weapons of all kinds, charges, grenades, guns, missiles. In some places they hid behind walls and furniture. In some places between 10-30 terrorists were waiting and in some apartments individual terrorists." said the senior officer.
"There were apartments with three IEDs. Entire floors were trapped. In one case, the terrorist thought that bulldozer activity in the building involved the infiltration of our fighters, so he activated an IED and the entire floor exploded and disappeared as if it were not there. They tried to hide IEDs in electrical cabinets, elevator shafts, and other hiding places to use them on our forces. There were places where they decided to go all the way and came out of windows to launch anti-tank missiles at tanks and APCs. There was one case where a terrorist came out of one of the buildings and ran to attach an explosive device to the Tiger APC.
A quick reaction of the force that killed him on the way.
Most of the terrorists surrendered because they realized that they were being targeted from all directions and had no choice but there were terrorists who went all the way.
till death".
Weapons found in the Qatari neighborhood/IDF spokesman
A small page brings a lot of information
During the raids and the clearing of the buildings, the commando brigade forces were able to locate the second "card", a senior member of Hamas, whom the Shin Bet wanted very much to locate and he was quickly transferred for investigation. The commando brigade pointed out other unusual events during the fighting in the built-up area. In one of them, the fighters of the Agoz unit climbed to the apartment on the fourth floor of the building and while encountering one of the fighters catches a mother sitting on her knees with her hands raised and her daughters in front of her and behind her a terrorist who opened fire in several directions brutally without hesitation and without fear that she might be hurt. The force succeeded with great precision in killing the terrorist and providing rapid medical aid to the mother and her daughters.
The next step was The fighting in the underground, which was built under the prestigious neighborhood. A tunnel that was dug in the space of the parks, buildings and the mosque and from there moved south. With the help of the intelligence that emerged from the area and the investigations, the IDF cut it off to prevent escape through it to Rafah and the area and then began to treat it in order to map it and destroy it.
Two fighters were killed in the operation in "Ir Hamad" and more than twenty were injured.
The obvious question was why the buildings were not bombed from the air and thus avoid risking the IDF forces. Officers in Division 98 did not hesitate and clarified that in order to stop the two "cards" in the neighborhood it was clearly necessary to maneuver into it except for the fact that the terrorists forced civilians to stay in the apartments at gunpoint. They also clarified that Items related to the POWs and missing persons issue were located. In one of them, one of the terrorists who were interrogated pointed to an apartment where they located the personal weapon of the Nahal Brigadier General, the late Col. Yonatan Steinberg, who was killed in battle on October 7.
Agoz unit activity in the Hamed neighborhood, Khan Yunis/IDF spokesman
Another point pointed out by a senior officer in Division 98 was the loot documents collected from the apartments.
"In my opinion, this is a psychic process. You can enter the house to get a phone or a page and this squishy page in the closet can shed light and close a circle and ends on shafts and tunnels. Where and how is it built. What are the layers of the construction and how do you enter the tunnel. A silly painting that closes the corner for you and makes you To understand the intelligence better."
Towards the end of the conversation, the senior officer from the 98th Division said that in his opinion, the story of fighting against Hamas terrorists and other terrorist organizations is a matter of spirit.
In his view, Hamas' forces are worn out and suffering from food and ammunition problems and the intensity of fighting.
Most of them are hiding in the underground or hiding apartments and hope that the fighting will end.
Therefore, in his view, if the Israeli side develops resilience in the face of hardship and patience, it will be possible to defeat Hamas without intense fighting as was the case at the beginning of the war and it will be possible to see more terrorists surrender.
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