Israel has pulled all of its ground troops out of southern Gaza for “tactical reasons”, the country’s army has said, raising questions about the future direction of the war as Hamas and Israeli delegations travel to Egypt for a new round of ceasefire talks, Ednews reports via The Guardian.

Two brigades will stay in the northern half of the Gaza Strip and the new corridor that now bifurcates the Palestinian territory at Wadi Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces said on Sunday, in order to “preserve the IDF’s freedom of action and its ability to conduct precise intelligence based-operations”.

It is believed the drawdown is primarily to relieve reservists after nearly four months of intense fighting in the decimated southern city of Khan Younis, rather than any significant shift in strategy.

An army official who spoke to the Israel daily Haaretz said: “There’s no need for us to remain in Khan Younis. The 98th Division dismantled Hamas’s Khan Younis brigades and killed thousands of its members. We did everything we could there.”

Displaced Palestinians from the city may now be able to return to their homes, they said.

Military analysts said on Sunday that an Israeli ground offensive on Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah, where about 1.5 million people were sheltering, was not off the table.