Israel’s partial withdrawal from the southern Gaza Strip is likely so its troops can “rest and refit,” rather than a move towards a new operation, the White House said, according to AFP.

“They’ve been on the ground for four months, the word we’re getting is they’re tired, they need to be refit,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told ABC’s ‘This Week’, though he stressed that it was “hard to know exactly what this tells us right now.”

Kirby spoke hours after Israel pulled all its troops out of southern Gaza, including from the city of Khan Younis, according to the military and Israeli media.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said a “significant force” will continue to operate in the rest of Gaza.