IDF Planners on Gaza City

Israel is attempting to persuade the one million inhabitants of Gaza City to leave, and head south to “safe areas” such as Al-Mawasi, in order to deprive Hamas of the civilians who serve as the terror group’s protective shield. The Israelis believe that despite the initially slow pace of people leaving Gaza City, that that number will pick up, until only a hard core of 10% of the population will remain. And it looks for signs of resistance against Hamas by Gazans who refuse to be kept inside the city. More on what is going on in Gaza City just as the IDF assault ramps up, can be found here: “Despite lack of local protests, Gaza City evacuation threatens Hamas’s tight grip,” by Amir Bohbot, Jerusalem Post, September 7, 2025:

Israel’s security establishment has assessed that the public in Gaza rarely demonstrates against Hamas due to deep fear and tightening control, but noted that the organization is not immune to internal threats.

A senior security source explained that “the Palestinian public is not revolting and is not taking to the streets,” but emphasized that local clans are beginning to challenge Hamas rule. The source warned that when hundreds of thousands of residents relocate from the southern Gaza Strip, Hamas will remain exposed without the “human shield” that has so far protected it in the heart of Gaza.

An official and authorized security source said that “the Hamas leadership is not really interested in the Palestinian public” and that they have expressed this several times. From their perspective, “100,000, 200,000, 300,000 will die – it doesn’t interest them.”

According to the source, this is a direct quote from senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayyah, adding that “the population doesn’t interest Hamas as long as it controls the Strip and as long as the population does not challenge it enough.”…

The security source added, “The Palestinian public in Gaza, for the most part, is not revolting, not taking to the streets, and not expressing it openly. In behind-the-scenes conversations, they address it – they say they would be very happy for Hamas to leave, but they are not expressing any public protest. I think it is based mainly on fear and challenge and the fact that Hamas holds the territory.”…

Of course, those Gazans who express their anger with Hamas in private do not dare to do so in public. They have seen how Hamas combatants routinely kill any Gazans complaining about them to foreign journalists, or posting on social media denunciations of the terror group, for stealing humanitarian aid and preventing them from leaving Gaza City while there is still time.

Individuals do not dare to challenge Hamas. But there certain large clans in Gaza that boast hundreds of well-armed fighters, who remain the masters of their own strip of territory, and in those areas, they are able to face down Hamas. The Abu al-Shabab clan, for one example, continues to exercise control over an area of southern Rafah, and has rebuffed attempts by Hamas to take over the area. There may be a half-dozen such clans in Gaza, both large enough, and well-armed enough, so that in the areas they control, Hamas’ writ does not run.

“Hamas’s big challenge will be when they see that hundreds of thousands of people will move from north to south, and I estimate that they will move. I estimate that this will challenge them in the context of their ability to deal with the IDF when they are not under human control.”

The Israeli official is confident that despite running the risk of being shot by Hamas, hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza City will in the end weigh the odds of being harmed if they remain in Gaza City against the odds of being shot by Hamas as they attempt to flee, and choose to leave the city for those safe zones in the south. Right now, almost 200,000 of the one million people originally in Gaza City have left; the Israeli official thinks that many more will leave as the IDF starts to push toward the center of the city. With so many of the civilians leaving, it will become more difficult for Hamas to hide among the diminished number of civilians who remain. Ideally, for the IDF, would be a Gaza City emptied of all of its civilians. That won’t happen, but the Israelis are confident that four-fifths of them will ultimately leave as the assault enters its final phase.

The security official dismissed criticism that Israel is bringing products into Gaza that do not meet the threshold for humanitarian aid while the hostages are starving in the tunnels.

“The policy of bringing in aid is clear. We bring in things that are within the basic humanitarian threshold, according to a very clear definition.”

Hamas accuses the GHF of bringing in food that is rotten or moldy, and medicines that have passed their sell-by date. Both charges are false.

The Israelis think it will take a few months to take full control of Gaza City and to destroy all the Hamas combatants who choose to remain in the city. Many of those combatants, of course, will not remain, but will have escaped from the city disguised as civilians, leaving their weapons behind, lest the IDF attack all those who are armed. They, too, will make their way to the safe zones in the south. But even though they remain alive, they will be without arms or leadership, and will have been broken as part of a coherent fighting force.

The Israelis are quietly confident that the takeover of Gaza City can be achieved without an unacceptable loss of lives — either of Israeli soldiers or of Gazan civilians. I allow myself to believe that they, and not the naysayers who insist “it won’t work,” are right.