Rocket barrage fired from Gaza at start of new year, no injuries reported * Armed drone shot down over Iraqi airbase with US presence * IDF death toll in Gaza ground operation at 172.
The IDF says it has eliminated the company commander of Hamas’s elite Nukhba force in central Gaza’s Deir al Balah in an overnight airstrike.
It says Adel Msammah commanded the Nukhba terrorists who carried out the attack on Kissufim on October 7, and directed other Hamas members to attack the border communities of Be’eri and Nirim.
“After that, Msammah led fighting in the Gaza Strip against our forces,” the IDF says.
Meanwhile, in northern Gaza, reservists of the Yiftah Brigade raided several Hamas and Islamic Jihad sites in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood, locating a cache of weapons in a mosque, the IDF says.
During the operation, Hamas operatives launched mortars at the forces. The IDF says a drone identified the cell and struck them.
In southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, troops of the Commando Brigade identified a Hamas operative launching rockets, and directed an aircraft to strike them, the IDF says.
Also overnight, the Air Force and Navy continued to strike sites across the Strip, aiding the ground forces with their maneuvers against Hamas.
