The IDF hopes to have taken apart two of Khan Yunis's four battalions, mainly in the northern part of the city, by sometime around the start of February.
Although the IDF is already starting to fight more in the southern and western sectors of Khan Yunis, taking apart those battalions is expected to take months longer.
It only took the IDF slightly more than two weeks to take operational control over large portions of northern Gaza, including most of Gaza City.
Then, it took about another month, with a break in the middle during the November 24-30 temporary ceasefire, for the IDF to have operational control over the remaining parts of northern Gaza, including Jabalia, Zeitoun, and Shejaia.
The IDF said that the current approach of advancing in Khan Yunis gradually but in a comprehensive way in each area where the IDF moves on to, including rooting out and destroying all of the massive tunnels and shafts, is time-consuming but the best available strategy.
Also, the IDF said that its forces are not as familiar with some areas deeper within Khan Yunis, where it has not operated for even much longer than some areas in northern Gaza, where it spent more time in past Gaza conflicts. This creates a longer learning curve in terms of maneuvering and threat perception.
The IDF said it knows where the Khan Yunis center of gravity is located
To date, much of the fighting revolves around networks of tunnel shafts and the general area near those shafts.
Sometimes, the IDF may only have seconds to hit Hamas terrorists when they emerge from the shafts either to try to ambush Israeli forces or after the IDF has created a dangerous situation for them within the tunnels, which flushes them out.
The IDF has also killed two Khan Yunis battalion commanders in the northern and eastern areas during attacks underground and arrested five Nukbeh terrorists for interrogation for intelligence purposes in another underground attack.
IDF Brigade 4 Commander Col. Miki Sharbit said, "We struck the northeastern battalion of Khan Yunis. We are conducting operations both above and below ground, destroying the enemy - this is what we prepared for, and this is what we trained for."
"The brigade is responsible for the area of Tantzar and the Salah a-Din junction," which is a crucial travel point between northern and southern Gaza, said Sharbit, adding, "We are trying to destroy enemy forces who are trying to cross through from many different directions, and by maintaining control in the area, enabling Division 98 freedom of action to penetrate more deeply."
Sharbit noted that essentially every civilian area, from houses to schools to mosques, was being systematically exploited by Hamas to attack IDF forces.
Next, he said, "Lots of the intelligence which leads up forward [to the next attack point] is battle intelligence which we obtain during fighting in the field. During one operation of our division, we understood from a fight in a certain area that this area had many terror tunnel shafts."
Using this information and the IDF's full air and land long-range attack capabilities, he said that they were able to kill around 20 terrorists and their company commander. In addition, we captured several terrorists who provided valuable intelligence upon being interrogated."
Likewise, IDF Brigade 55 Commander Col. Oded Zimen said that his forces had killed many terrorists, significant amounts of terror infrastructure both above and below ground, and also captured terrorists who gave valuable forward-looking intelligence for fighting Hamas.