There is a picture of Hamas Commanders in Gaza

Hamas is a threat to Israel: Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip have no’safe’ zones, nor are they overflowing?

Each minute the situation is getting worse. There is no ‘safe’ zone, the entire Gaza Strip has become one of the most dangerous places in the world. There is nowhere to go as shelters, including UNRWA are overflowing,” the agency said on X.

Israeli military commanders this week estimated they had killed several thousand Hamas fighters since the war began. Israeli officials said those estimates were based in part on the assumption that between 200 and 250 Hamas fighters had been killed if Israeli troops said they wiped out a Hamas battalion, and that if a commander was targeted and killed, a team of five or six people had died with him. Officials said it would take days for confirmation of a commander’s death to arrive.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin gave a speech at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California, warning that Israel risks “strategic defeat” if it doesn’t protect Palestinians in Gaza.

“The center of gravity is the civilian population and if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat,” Austin said.

Halevi said they were asked a lot about the destruction in Gaza. “Hamas is the [answer] to those questions,” adding, “Our forces find weapons in almost every house, terrorists are found in many houses, we fight them.”

“These things require the use of a wide range of fire, both to damage the enemy and, of course, to protect our forces. That is why they operate powerfully” while still going to “great efforts to minimize harm” to civilians, Halevi said.

“Clearing operations take a very long time,” Carter said. They have to conduct military operations in areas that have already been cleared as Hamas fighters attack their positions.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ministers of his war cabinet met with some hostages released in a brief cease-fire last month after being held for weeks in Gaza by Hamas.

Released hostages castigated the Israeli government officials for claiming to have intelligence on Hamas locations yet bombing indiscriminately. They said during captivity that they were more scared of bombs from Israel.

Scott Neuman and Eleanor Beardsley went to Israel and the West Bank to report on Brian Mann. NPR producer Anas Baba contributed from Rafah, in the Gaza Strip.

The IDF said on Wednesday that it had hit 250 targets in the Gaza Strip in the last 24 hours, and that ground troops had found and destroyed weapons, underground shafts and other terrorist infrastructures.

The statement marked the first time that Israel had acknowledged that ground forces were engaged in and around Khan Younis. In the video, soldiers are operating in northern Gaza.

He said that on Tuesday the Israel Defense Forces were taking part in the most intense day since the ground operation started, with the use of weapons from the land and air.

The head of Israel’s southern command stated at a news conference that he was in the center of both Shujaiyya and Khan Younis. Jabaliya, the site of a major refugee camp, and Shujaiya, are located in Gaza’s north. Khan Younis, considered a Hamas stronghold, is located toward the south end of the Strip.

The city of Khan Younis is one of the worst-hit parts of the Gaza Strip after Israel launched its air- and ground offensive on July 8.

The military statement said that the northern brigade had been damaged. The Israeli military has been accused of causing damage to battalions from the Gaza City brigade.

Among those in the photo the army said it had eliminated were the head of Hamas’s aerial division, two battalion commanders, a brigade commander and a deputy brigade commander.

Israel kills the leader of the Qassam armed wing of Hamas in Gaza: A photo of Abu Anas and Salman

On Wednesday, Mr. Netanyahu said in a video posted on the X platform: “Our forces are encircling Sinwar’s house. He can escape, but it is only a matter of time until we reach him.”

Even if Israel manages to kill the group’s current leaders, there is no guarantee that Israel will accomplish its stated goal of eliminating Hamas and removing it from power.

Israeli forces are currently in southern Gaza trying to find and kill top Hamas leaders who are hiding there. Mohammed Deif, the head of the Qassam armed wing, is in that group with Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza.

The military wing of Hamas, Al-Qassam, confirmed last month that at least three of the men in the picture had been killed, including Ahmed al-Ghandour, the northern Gaza military leader known as Abu Anas, and his deputy, Wael Rajab. Another was Rafet Salman, a Hamas battalion commander. In November, a spokesman for the Israeli military said its forces had attacked an underground site where Mr. al-Ghandour had been hiding.

The leaders in the photo are seen sitting at a long, low table festooned with fruit, drinks and other foods. Beneath the enclave are hundreds of tunnels Hamas has constructed to hide and transport weapons, fighters and materiel.

He said that Israel killed many of the Hamas battalion commanders. But he did not provide the names and details of all of those killed.

An Israeli intelligence unit analyzed the picture after it was seized in Gaza but did not reveal who initially took the photograph. Some of the photograph’s details, including its exact date and location, could not be immediately independently verified.