The Israel Defense Forces announced on Friday that its units in northern Gaza identified a group of several terrorists in the Yellow Line separation zone approaching Israeli personnel and posing an immediate threat.
The threat was then transmitted to the Israeli Air Force, which struck and eliminated “a number of terrorists,” the IDF said.
IDF troops under the Southern Command remain deployed in Gaza “in accordance with the ceasefire agreement and will continue to operate to remove any immediate threat,” the military said.
On Thursday, the IDF said its ongoing anti-tunnel activity in northern Gaza demolished some five kilometers of routes in the Beit Hanoun area.
The security activity involved engineering units operating east of the Yellow Line—the area of Gaza under Israeli security control—targeting both underground and overground terrorist infrastructure, the military stated.
The efforts include drilling machines to locate the tunnels, and elite Yahalom combat engineering troops to dismantle the tunnel routes.
Throughout the week, the Gaza Strip saw active military operations to dismantle terrorist infrastructure.
Hamas tries to infiltrate future police and government plans.
On the diplomatic front, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) is reportedly dissatisfied with Hamas for appointing five district police commanders in Gaza, all tied in to its “military” wing, according to a Feb. 19 report by Reuters.
Meanwhile, following the Feb. 19 summit of the Gaza Peace Board in Washington, D.C., led by U.S. President Donald Trump, reports mounted about Hamas’s attempts to infiltrate future governing bodies intended to run Gaza.
During the summit, the United States pledged $10 billion toward Gaza’s reconstruction, while Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait promised $1 billion each, and the United Arab Emirates pledged $1.2 billion, according to a report by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.
While Hamas has expressed a willingness to hand over governing institutions to the new National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, the terror organization is reportedly simultaneously pushing to incorporate thousands of its operatives into the new Palestinian police force and to ensure that it can steer any future technocratic government.
On Thursday, Professor Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy and the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, published a paper at the Israel Center for Grand Strategy that provided a stark assessment of the diplomatic situation in Gaza.
Michael argued that “the only chance of decreasing the gap between the vision and celebratory declarations [by Trump and his Peace Board plans] and to begin a path toward reconstructing and truly changing Gaza, is to disarm Hamas and dismantle it as a political and ruling force, and to demilitarize Gaza.
“It would be preferable if President Trump manages to lead Turkey, Qatar and Egypt to force this process on Hamas, but the chances of this are almost nonexistent. Those three countries, and certainly Qatar and Turkey, have no desire or interest in such a goal.”
The alternative, Michael concluded, is to order the IDF to complete the mission, “which should have already ended and was defined as a war goal.”
During his State of the Union Address on Tuesday night, Trump asserted that Hamas “worked together with Israel” and “dug and dug” to find deceased Israeli hostages.
Palestinian American businessman Bashara Bahbah, who has taken part in backchannel diplomacy, said the Board of Peace’s implementation measures remain ambiguous. He added that the 15-member NCAG technocratic committee has been created but lacks tools or governing authorities, and called for the Palestinian Authority and the PLO to be included in the Board of Peace.
Meanwhile, on Feb. 21, the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories unit reported that in the previous week, 4,200 aid trucks entered Gaza carrying food, medicine and equipment, including tents and clothing.
On Sunday, the Israeli Security Cabinet convened in Jerusalem, examining the top strategic issues, among them the future of Gaza.
Ze’ev Elkin, a member of the Security Cabinet who serves as a second minister in the Finance Ministry, said Israel would not contribute to the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip through the Board of Peace.
“We will not fund the Board of Peace; there is no reason to,” Elkin told state radio channel Kan Reshet Bet.
