Israel claims to have killed half of the Hamas battalion commanders

Israel has so far failed to kill the group’s leaders, Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar and the head of the group’s armed wing, Mohammed Deif. But fighting is now taking place around Khan Yunis, one of Hamas’ strongholds in southern Gaza, where the Israeli military says Sinwar and others may be hiding, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that his troops had surrounded Y. Sinwar’s house in Chan Yunis. The move is largely considered symbolic. The Israeli military is assessing whether a Hamas fighter is hiding in the group’s underground network of tunnels. “But this proves that our forces can reach anywhere in the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu said.

The structure of Hamas’ secret armed group, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, is not widely known. But Israel believes it has about 24 battalions, each with 1,000 or more fighters. The Israeli army, which engaged in heavy fighting in northern and southern Gaza on Wednesday, said it had significantly weakened at least 10 of them, killing mid-level commanders.

Late on Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had killed senior commanders hiding in a tunnel in northern Gaza, disrupting the group’s ability to lead operations in that part of the strip.