RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Dozens of Hamas operatives remain trapped in an area of the southern Gaza Strip that is under Israeli control, military commanders told reporters on Sunday, vowing that they would hunt them all down.
“Our main mission is to destroy or capture the enemy in Rafah,” Col. Adi Gonen, the commander of the Golani Brigade, said in the southern Gaza city’s Jenina neighborhood.
The Hamas operatives trapped on the Israeli side of the so-called “Yellow Line” — separating Gaza in accordance with the October ceasefire agreement — are believed by the military to have been there since the collapse of a previous truce in the Strip earlier this year.
Since the start of the latest ceasefire, the United States has been pressuring Israel to allow the gunmen safe passage back to Hamas-held areas of Gaza.
The operatives are not all located in a single tunnel, but rather split up among several in the Jenina neighborhood, according to IDF assessments. The military believes that they are being led by a Hamas battalion commander and several company commanders in the terror group.
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The IDF does not know exactly how many gunmen remain in the area. Some early assessments put that number at 200, but now the military believes that number to be far lower, saying dozens of the operatives likely died in the tunnels following Israeli strikes on them.
Col. Adi Gonen, the commander of the Golani Brigade, speaks to reporters in southern Gaza’s Rafah, November 23, 2025. (Emanuel Fabian/Times of Israel)
On Monday, the military reported that in the past week, combat engineers had destroyed hundreds of meters of tunnels in the area, and the Israeli Air Force struck over 60 targets — including 15 tunnel shafts and some 40 buildings used by terror groups.
Those who have survived after months of holding out in the tunnels — likely several dozen — are thought by the IDF to be running out of supplies and starving.
At times, the Hamas gunmen have tried to sneak up above ground to search for food, such as bags of flour that had fallen off aid trucks, or supplies left behind by the army.
Recently, military officials said that the operatives have been increasingly trying to flee back to Hamas-held areas of the Strip.
IDF troops work to uncover Hamas tunnels in southern Gaza’s Rafah, in a handout photo issued by the military on November 21, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)
A week ago, IDF troops spotted and shot dead four operatives who emerged from a tunnel in the area. In an incident over the weekend, 17 gunmen emerged from tunnels at two locations in the Jenina area, and were either killed or captured.
“Our main mission is to continue to try to locate them in the area. Most of them are underground. Some of them try to come out of the ground. We are working day and night with different techniques to locate them,” Gonen said.
“It’s simple, either they surrender or we’ll kill them,” the commander vowed.
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