Six to eight weeks to eradicate Hamas: Israeli officials

Israel expects to continue full-scale military operations in Gaza for another six to eight weeks as it prepares to mount a ground invasion of the enclave's southernmost city of Rafah, four officials familiar with the strategy said.

Military chiefs believe they can significantly damage Hamas' remaining capabilities in that time, paving the way for a shift to a lower-intensity phase of targeted airstrikes and special forces operations, according to the two Israeli and two regional officials who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely.

There is little chance that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government will heed international criticism to call off a Rafah ground assault, said Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official and a negotiator in the first and second Palestinian intifadas, or uprisings, in the 1980s and 2000s.

"Rafah is the last bastion of Hamas control and there remain battalions in Rafah which Israel must dismantle to achieve its goals in this war," he added.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Friday that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were planning operations in Rafah targeting Hamas fighters, command centres and tunnels, though gave no timeline for the campaign. He stressed that "extraordinary measures" were being taken to avoid civilian casualties.

"There were 24 regional battalions in Gaza – we have dismantled 18 of them," he told a media briefing. "Now, Rafah is the next Hamas centre of gravity."

World leaders fear a humanitarian catastrophe.

Trapped between the two sworn enemies are more than a million Palestinian civilians crammed into the city on the Egyptian border, with nowhere left to run, after fleeing Israeli attacks that have laid waste to much of the enclave.

In a past week of high diplomatic tension, U.S. President Joe Biden phoned the Israeli leader twice to warn him against launching a military operation in Rafah without a credible plan to ensure the safety of civilians. Netanyahu himself said civilians would be allowed to leave the battle zone before the offensive, even as he vowed "complete victory".

The IDF hasn't explained how it will move more than a million people within the ruins of the enclave.

According to one Israeli security source and an international aid official, who asked not to be identified, Gazans could be screened to weed out any Hamas fighters before being sent northwards. 

A separate Israeli source said Israel could also build a floating jetty north of Rafah to enable international aid and hospital ships to arrive by sea.

Nonetheless, an Israeli defence official said Palestinians wouldn't be allowed to return to north Gaza en masse, leaving scrubland around Rafah as an option for makeshift tent cities. The regional officials also said it wouldn't be safe to move a large number of people into a northern zone with no power and running water which hasn't been cleared of unexploded ordinance.

Washington is sceptical Israel has made sufficient preparations for a secure civilian evacuation, several officials familiar with the conversations between the two governments said. Biden said on Friday he didn't expect a "massive" Israeli ground invasion to happen soon.

Furthermore, according to Hamas, the total victory promised by Netanyahu won't be quick or easy.

A Hamas official based in Qatar told Reuters that the group estimated it had lost 6,000 fighters during the four-month-old conflict, half the 12,000 Israel says it has killed.

Gaza's ruling group can keep fighting and is prepared for a long war in Rafah and Gaza, said the official, who requested anonymity.

"Netanyahu's options are difficult and ours are too. He can occupy Gaza but Hamas is still standing and fighting. He hasn't achieved his goals to kill the Hamas leadership or annihilate Hamas," he added.