People search for survivors and for bodies of victims through the rubble of buildings destroyed during Israeli airstrikes, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 26, 2023, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Palestinian terror group Hamas.
The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday that its airstrikes in the Gaza Strip during the day had killed five senior commanders in the Hamas terror group, as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant reiterated that a ground operation was looming and vowed to win the war, asserting that the country’s next 75 years largely depend on it.
The military also denied reports that Israel was set to agree for fuel to enter the besieged Palestinian enclave in exchange for the release of many hostages held by Hamas in the Strip.
The IDF has for several weeks been preparing a full-scale incursion aimed at rooting out the Gaza-ruling terror group following its murderous October 7 onslaught in southern Israel. It has pounded the Strip on an unprecedented scale in order to eliminate potential threats to ground troops once the order finally comes.
One airstrike on Thursday killed the deputy head of Hamas’s intelligence directorate, Shadi Barud, the military said. The IDF accused Barud of planning the October 7 massacre along with Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar. Barud previously served as a battalion commander in the Khan Younis area and held other roles in the terror group’s intelligence directorate, and “was responsible for planning numerous terror attacks against Israeli civilians,” the IDF said.
Another strike killed the head of Hamas’s North Khan Younis rocket array, Hassan al-Abdullah, according to the army, which added that fighter jets had struck and killed several more Hamas members and destroyed several sites belonging to the terror group throughout the day.
And in the evening, the military said it had killed three senior commanders in Hamas’s Daraj-Tuffah Battalion: the battalion’s commander, Rifaat Abbas; the deputy commander, Ibrahim Jadba; and a combat support commander, Tarek Maarouf. According to the IDF, the Daraj-Tuffah Battalion is part of Hamas’s Gaza City Brigade, which is “considered the most significant brigade of the Hamas terrorist organization.”
“The battalion’s operatives played a significant role in the invasion and murderous attack against Israel on October 7,” the IDF added.
The army published several videos showing the airstrikes that killed the senior Hamas members.
The destruction of areas of northern Gaza are visible from space in satellite images taken before and after Israeli’s airstrikes, which followed the raids carried out by Hamas militants on Oct. 7.
In images shot Saturday by Maxar Technologies, four- and five-story buildings in the Izbat Beit Hanoun neighborhood are in various states of collapse. Huge chunks are missing from some, others are broken in half and two large complexes lie in piles of rubble.
The pattern of destruction in the Al Karameh neighborhood can be traced by a widespread pattern the color of ash.
Tightly packed streets in Beit Hanoun look obliterated, with a rare white structure standing out in the gray wasteland.
Israel says its war against Hamas is aimed at destroying the Iran-backed terror group’s infrastructure and has vowed to dismantle the organization after the October 7 massacres, while minimizing harm to Gaza’s civilians. The IDF has been calling on Palestinians to evacuate from northern Gaza southward, as it intensifies strikes in the Gaza City area.
Led by Hamas and carried out with other terror groups, the assault saw some 2,500 terrorists burst across the border into Israel from the Gaza Strip by land, air and sea, killing some 1,400 people and seizing at least 228 hostages of all ages, under the cover of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli towns and cities.
In a primetime televised address Thursday evening, Gallant, the defense minister, promised to make “every effort” to return the hostages held by Hamas, and said: “We are in decisive moments. This is a war for our home and we will win it. It’s either us or them.”
“Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza is being carried out by air, land and sea. It is hitting bunkers, tunnels, communications, terrorists and their commanders,” he continued. “The war is precise, lethal and powerful. It is our duty to win this war. That’s the unwritten contract between the security establishment and the citizens. It is my duty as the defense minister to lead so that we win the battle, and the citizens can live here in peace and quiet.”
Gallant said again that the planned ground offensive will occur soon. “Additional stages in the war will also come, we are creating the conditions for them and we will carry them out. I am determined… to ensure the State of Israel is victorious over this tough and evil enemy — over this epitome of evil.”
“Nothing like this has happened in Israel’s 75 years of existence,” he continued, referring to the scale of the carnage and destruction, and the number of abducted Israelis. “What will happen in the next 75 years depends largely on the achievements in this battle.”
Israeli Air Force sources says that more than 10,000 sites belonging to Hamas and other terror groups have been struck since the beginning of the war.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says the strikes have killed over 7,000 people, many of them children. The figures issued by the terror group cannot be independently verified, and are believed to include its own terrorists and gunmen killed in Israel and in Gaza, and the victims of what Israel says are hundreds of errant Palestinian rockets that have landed in the Strip since the war began. Israel says it killed 1,500 Hamas terrorists inside Israel on and after October 7.
The death toll on both sides is expected to rise significantly once Israel launches its ground offensive and begins entering cities. Troops are expected to have to contend with Gaza’s network of tunnels dug by terror groups, booby traps and bombs, as they battle through tough urban environments.
The IDF deployed a limited ground incursion into Gaza in the early morning hours of Thursday, sending infantry forces and tanks up to a kilometer into the northern part of the Strip in a “targeted raid” ahead of the planned full-scale offensive.
According to the IDF, the raid — led by the Givati infantry brigade and the 162nd Armored Division — was part of preparing the border area for the “next stages of the war.” Troops struck “numerous” terrorists, infrastructure and anti-tank guided missile launch positions, and “operated to prepare the battlefield,” the army said.
Soldiers returned to Israeli territory after the hours-long raid, the IDF added.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Thursday evening that the army would continue similar limited ground raids in Gaza, saying they would be carried out “tonight as well, and it will continue all the more forcefully in the coming days.”
He said the IDF was still carrying out “massive strikes” on the Gaza Strip, “from the air and sea,” focusing on killing senior Hamas members and those who participated in the October 7 assault.
Thursday saw multiple salvos of rockets aimed at central Israel, including the cities of Tel Aviv, Rishon Lezion, Bat Yam, Givatayim, Ramat Gan, Holon and others, as well as barrages targeting southern cities Ashdod, Ashkelon and Netivot, as well as largely evacuated Gaza border communities.
Many of the projectiles were intercepted or fell in uninhabited areas, but one damaged a building in the central city of Petah Tikva and started a fire in an eighth-floor apartment, prompting all 36 families living in the building to temporarily evacuate as officials removed the rocket, which was suspected to have not fully exploded. A woman living in the damaged apartment had headed out with her daughter minutes before the impact.
A rocket in a later barrage at central Israel landed near a highway near Rehovot, setting fire to a utility pole. There were subsequently reports of widespread power outages in the area, but medics said no one was physically injured.
Gazan terrorists have launched thousands of rockets at Israel since October 7, killing and wounding a number of people.
