The Israeli Air Force carried out a targeted strike on Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror operatives at a command and control center in a humanitarian zone in central Gaza overnight Wednesday.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, the attack in the Deir al-Balah area was conducted to remove an immediate threat.
“The command and control center was used by the terrorists as … infrastructure from which terror attacks were planned and directed against IDF troops and the State of Israel,” the IDF said, adding that precautions were taken to minimize the risk to noncombatants, including using precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence.
At least five were killed in the strike, according to Palestinian reports.
“Terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip systematically violate international law and operate from within civilian infrastructure, brutally exploiting the Gazan civilian population for its terrorist activities,” the IDF said, adding, “The IDF will continue to operate against the terrorist organizations and in defense of the State of Israel.”
More than 200 terrorists killed in IDF operation in Tel al-Sultan
Israeli forces have killed more than 200 terrorists in recent weeks during operations in the Tel al-Sultan area of Rafah in southern Gaza, the military said on Wednesday.
Troops from the 401st Brigade are active in the area as part of the 162nd Division’s operations in the former Hamas stronghold along the Egypt-Gaza border.
Dozens of weapons stored in civilian structures have been located so far, including a large cache inside a basement where Hamas terrorists were embedded.
“In one encounter, terrorists fired at the troops from inside a building in the area. The troops conducted a targeted raid on the building, searched it, and then eliminated the terrorists inside,” the IDF said.
“In the basement of the building, the troops located large quantities of weapons that were used by the terrorists there,” added the military.
Additionally, soldiers located 10 long-range rocket launchers intended to fire projectiles into Israeli territory.
On Tuesday, Israeli forces in Gaza killed the Hamas terrorist who led the Oct. 7 assault on the northwest Negev moshav of Netiv Ha’asara.
Israeli fighter jets struck a Hamas compound near the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, killing eight terrorists from Hamas’s Daraj Tuffah Battalion. Among them was Ahmed Fozi Nazer Muhammad Wadia, a member of the terror group’s Nukhba force who led the invasion of Netiv Ha’asara, located directly adjacent to the Gaza fence.
On Oct. 7, Wadia, who was active in Hamas’s parachute array, infiltrated the moshav using a paraglider and oversaw the massacre of 21 residents and the kidnapping of one to Gaza.
