JERUSALEM/CAIRO/GAZA: Israel pulled tanks out of some Gaza City districts on Monday (Jan 1), residents said, as it announced plans to shift tactics and cut back on troop numbers, but fighting raged elsewhere in the Palestinian enclave along with intense bombardment.
Israel says the war in Gaza, which has reduced much of the territory to rubble, killing thousands and plunging its 2.3 million people into a humanitarian disaster, has many months to go.
But it also signalled a new phase in its offensive, with an official saying on Monday the military would draw down forces inside Gaza this month and shift to a months-long phase of more localised “mopping up” operations.
A US official said the decision appeared to indicate the start of a shift to lower-intensity operations in the north of the Palestinian enclave.
The hints at a lowered tempo in Gaza came as the US Navy announced that the Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier was returning to its home port in Virginia after being deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean following the outbreak of hostilities.
The Israeli official said the troop reduction would allow some reservists to return to civilian life, shoring up Israel’s war-battered economy, and freeing up units in case of a wider conflict in the north with Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Artillery fire between Hezbollah and Israel has rattled the border since the start of the Gaza conflict, with Israel’s military saying it carried out an air strike on Monday.
Residents and security sources said Israeli raids targeted houses in the Lebanese village of Kafr Kila near the border, killing three people. They identified them as rescuers, but Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement later said on its Telegram account on Monday that the three were fighters with the movement.
The Israeli official said the situation on the Lebanese border “will not be allowed to continue. This coming six-month period is a critical moment”.
Any new escalation carries risks for a wider regional war. Tehran-backed fighters in Yemen have attacked Red Sea shipping, drawing a US military response, and an Iranian warship has sailed into the waterway, Iranian media reported on Monday.
The Gaza war was triggered by a surprise Hamas attack on Israeli towns on Oct 7 that Israel says killed 1,200 people. Palestinian health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza say Israel’s offensive there has killed more than 21,978 people.
Source: CNA
