COMMENTARY MAG
Hamas On The Ropes: A Progress Report
Jonathan Schanzer
September 12, 2024

The Israel Defense Force (IDF) announced today, September 12, that the southern army of Hamas in Gaza, called the Rafah Brigade, had been dismantled. The spokesman’s office said 2,000 Hamas fighters had been killed, and that 80 percent of the tunnels in the area had been destroyed. This comes just days after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared that Hamas no longer existed as a military force in Gaza, and that it was time for Israel to head north because a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon is looming. What to make of this? There can be no doubt that Hamas is a spent force. The estimates of Hamas fighters killed during this war vary, but it’s safe to say that the number stands at 18,000 or even more. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL IDF declares Hamas’s Rafah Brigade defeated; no active cross-border tunnels found The Hamas terror group’s Rafah Brigade has been decimated, at least 2,308 of its operatives have been killed by the Israel Defense Forces, and over 13 kilometers (8 miles) worth of tunnels have been destroyed, military officials told reporters in the Gaza Strip’s southernmost city on Thursday. Now, as the IDF maintains control of the entire city and the border area with Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, combat engineers are completing their investigations of a few dozen Hamas tunnels that have not yet been demolished…

JNS IDF soldier killed in Samaria truck-ramming attack IDF Staff Sgt. Geri Gideon Hanghal, 24, from the city of Nof HaGalil in northern Israel, served in the Nachshon Battalion of the Kfir Brigade.

ISRAEL HAYOM Unit 8200 commander announces resignation, concedes intel lapses Brigadier General Yossi Sariel, the chief of Israel’s famed SIGINT unit, notes that he failed to sound the alarm about Oct. 7 despite gathering valuable data and sharing it. He is the third senior IDF officer to step down over the past year since the start of the war.

NEW YORK POST IDF reveals the bloody Hamas tunnel where Hersh Goldberg-Polin and other hostages were held and killed The latest footage from the IDF comes following reports that Goldberg-Polin and the other hostages tried to fight off the terrorists before they were slain. “Several of the six are assessed to have defended themselves and struggled with those who shot them,” Channel 12 News reported. The Israeli outlet cited an IDF report finding that “Hersh, Ori, Alex and Almog defended Eden and Carmel” before they were killed.