Israel says the Rafah offensive is nearing the end, in a possible turning point in the war

According to Palestinian health officials, this would represent a significant milestone in the war, a shift from widespread ground and air strikes that leveled much of the enclave and killed tens of thousands of people. It would provide a potential respite for civilians who have spent months in the line of fire, allow more humanitarian aid and possibly push stalled diplomatic efforts to reach a cease-fire agreement and free Israeli hostages still held by Hamas.

A complete end to the war is not in sight. The Israel Defense Forces said they destroyed most of the 24 Hamas battalions and severely destroyed three of the four remaining battalions in Rafah. But lone fighters and small groups still fire rockets into Israel and target troops, even in areas of the Gaza Strip already under Israeli control.

On Saturday, eight Israeli soldiers were killed in Rafah when an explosion hit the armored personnel carrier they were traveling in, the IDF said. Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said the attack was carried out with an anti-tank missile, calling it a “painful blow” to the Israeli army.

“And we have more,” Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obaida said in a statement.

Israel has made clear indefinitely that it wants to keep some troops inside Gaza — or within striking distance outside the Israeli enclave — indefinitely to keep Hamas in check.

“Guerrilla fighting never ends,” said an Israeli military official familiar with the ground operation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss security issues. “Our goal now is to defeat the Rafah Brigades, and we are doing that.”

A possible end to the Rafah offensive would cap nearly eight months of large-scale ground operations in Gaza, which began Israel's war against Hamas on Oct. 7 after weeks of aerial bombardment that killed nearly 1,200 Israelis and took nearly 250 hostage. .

In Gaza, which is home to 2.2 million people, at least 37,372 Palestinians were killed and 85,452 wounded, according to Gaza's health ministry, which did not distinguish between civilians and fighters but said most of the casualties were women and children.

What follows is expected to be a slow, targeted campaign to prevent Hamas from regrouping. According to Yossi Kuperwasser, a retired brigadier general and former director general of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, these pop-up, mop-up operations will be conducted by a small number of Israeli soldiers.

“They're getting closer and closer to finishing the major operation, and then we move into Phase 3,” Kuperwasser said. “Rafah was critical. Things are going to change. But this is not the end of the war.”

The IDF attacked Rafah on May 6, brushing aside warnings from Washington and other allies that an incursion would have devastating consequences for more than a million people who had fled to the area after being displaced by earlier fighting. The war has created a humanitarian crisis that Israel is under international pressure to address.

Washington has said it will not support any operation that does not adequately account for civilian safety. On May 8, President Biden for the first time threatened to halt shipments of offensive weapons to Israel if its forces attacked the most populated areas of Rafah. Of particular concern was a batch of 2,000-pound bombs that the administration said Israel had previously used in densely populated areas.

Israel dropped leaflets and warned civilians to leave the Rafah area the day before the offensive began, forcing nearly 1 million people to flee again, according to the United Nations. Many went to tents north and west of the city; Others have found space on already jammed sidewalks and fields for displaced people.

For many, the past six weeks in Rafah have brought home the full horror of the war. At least 45 people were killed in an Israeli attack on a makeshift camp on May 26, the Gaza Health Ministry said. Witnesses described to The Washington Post the sight of the family burning inside the tent.

The IDF said the incident, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as “a tragic accident,” is under investigation. Weapons experts said the Israeli military used a US-made precision bomb in the attack, after an SDB GBU-39, a 250 pound small-diameter weapon fragment, was found near the site.

Adli Abu Taha, 33, said artillery shells hit his home in the first hours of the May 6 Israeli attack. He and his family fled with what they could carry, he said, as suddenly displaced people wandered by the side of the road carrying heavy loads.

Abu Tahar's family eventually found a place in a tented camp near Khan Younis, where they learned that their home had been destroyed.

“My mom doesn't stop crying,” he said in a phone interview. “This house represented our lives. It was the only thing we kept that smelled of my father.”

Two US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss thinking within the administration, said they were closely monitoring the situation in Rafah and hoped the end of the operation would open up new opportunities for diplomacy.

Officials believe Israel's confidence in Rafah is what made senior Israelis, including Netanyahu, willing to sign a six-week ceasefire and hostage exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel in late May, followed by additional negotiations. A permanent ceasefire. That deal stalled after Hamas insisted Israel made clear promises to end the war.

Israel unexpectedly announced on Sunday that it would begin a daily pause in the Gaza war to allow more humanitarian aid to enter southern Israel through the Keram Shalom crossing, about five miles east of central Rafah. Military officials told Israeli media that they are within two weeks of termination.

“The IDF is very close to dismantling Hamas' Rafah battalions,” IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Saturday.

“It's now for all practical purposes over in Rafah and they can start negotiating what a hostage agreement means,” Kuperwasser said.

A senior Israeli military official familiar with the Rafah operation said the 162nd Division had made substantial progress on Israel's three main objectives in the region: attacking the last battalions of Hamas; destroying its military infrastructure; and reduced arms supplies coming through the tunnels from Egypt.

When the offensive began in early May, troops immediately seized the crossing between Rafah and Egypt and soon took control of the entire eight-mile stretch of the border.

Known as the Philadelphia Corridor – the IDF's code name for the Rafah buffer zone that runs from Israel to the Mediterranean Sea – troops identified 20 cross-border tunnels and destroyed 14 of them, cutting off Hamas' main source of weapons, senior officials said. The military estimates that another 20 tunnels remain to be identified.

Before launching operations near the border, the Israelis called their Egyptian counterparts to the other side, giving them access to shelters, the official said.

“We have full control of the corridor,” the official said. “There has been no smuggling since the beginning of May.”

From a new, expanded buffer zone, extending 550 yards north of the border, IDF units attacked targets in and around Rafah. They destroyed more than 24 miles of underground infrastructure, the official said, including command posts and rocket workshops. Two of the four Hamas battalions were effectively destroyed, the official said; Another is seriously damaged, and the fourth is the focus of an impending attack.

The official said fighting against Hamas operatives in Rafah city has been more intense than in other areas, including Gaza City. Hamas units in the far south had months to prepare and learn from IDF tactics employed elsewhere, the official said.

But the Israelis have also adapted, targeting attacks more precisely and relying less on aerial bombardment, the official said.

“We have also learned,” the official said. “There's no need to take every building and every street in the city.”

Israeli hardliners have pushed back on US calls for more targeting in Rafah and criticized the IDF for not deploying more force. They are pressuring the leadership to launch larger attacks on Hamas' final positions, even if it means destroying more cities.

“This is not a full-scale attack on Rafah,” said Amir Avivi, a retired general and head of the Israel Defense and Security Forum. “If you don't want them to escape, you have to surround the city and attack from multiple directions.”

Avivi is among those who say Israel cannot claim victory in Rafah or Gaza until Yehia Sinwar, the mastermind behind the October 7 attack and the leader of Hamas inside the territory, is captured or killed.

“How can you say we destroyed Hamas if we didn't get to its leadership?” said Avivi.

Several Palestinians in the town of Rafah said they had heard reports that Israel might end the offensive soon, but they were still largely subdued by the fighting.

“The shelling and targeting are still continuing, and the helicopters are firing intensely and randomly on everything that is going on,” said Wissam Ismail, 28, who has been displaced three times since October 7 along with 10 of his relatives. “Will is one thing, and the media is one thing, and what is happening on the ground is something entirely different.”

Herb reports from London. John Hudson and Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.