PALESTINIAN FIGHTERS CALL ISRAELI BATTALION’S 48-HOUR WITHDRAWAL FROM GAZA A ‘DEFEAT’

Sat 23 December 2023:

Palestinian fighters are engaged in close-quarters, urban warfare in their attempt to blunt Israel’s advance in the north of the Gaza Strip, and claimed victory when an Israeli battalion was rotated out of the Palestinian territory for a “rest”, according to war monitors.

As Israeli forces attempt to clear the Jabalia area of northern Gaza “building by building”, Palestinian fighters are hiding in wait and conducting ambushes with small arms and grenades, according to US-based think tanks The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP).

Palestinian fighters are putting up some of the stiffest resistance in Jabalia’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, the ISW and CTP said in their latest situation report.

Near daily attacks on Israeli forces in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood “suggests that it is one of the remaining areas of significant Palestinian militia defensive capabilities in the northern Gaza Strip”, the monitors said.

Palestinian armed groups continue to fight in the central Gaza Strip and in the south, and branded as a “defeat” when Israel removed its 13th Battalion of the Golani Brigade from Gaza for a 48-hour “breather” following 21 days of intense fighting in the Shujayea neighbourhood of Gaza City, the monitors added.

“The unit has lost 44 soldiers since October 7 and faced a complex, multi-part ambush in [Shujayea] on December 12, which left nine soldiers dead,” according to the ISW/CTP.

NEW | #Palestinian militia fighters south of #Gaza City are defending against Israeli advances into the central Gaza Strip. Read today’s update from @criticalthreats and @thestudyofwar: https://t.co/ehuDvX95lH pic.twitter.com/wWRfnogXLs

— Critical Threats (@criticalthreats) December 23, 2023