The Northern Brigade of the Israel Defense Forces’ Gaza Division completed a targeted operation in the Jabalia area of the northern Strip, the military announced on Sunday.
The raid, which also included troops from the division’s engineering unit and the Yahalom combat engineering special forces unit, was launched in early October following indications of a resurgence of Hamas terrorists there.
Soldiers dismantled “dozens” of tunnels in the area—some of which were booby-trapped—that were used by Palestinian terrorists to harm the forces operating in Jabalia, the army said.
In one instance, soldiers discovered and destroyed an underground terrorist infrastructure stretching hundreds of feet, it said.
During the operation, the forces were attacked by Hamas with anti-tank weapons, the statement said. The IDF moved to eliminate the terrorists through Israeli Air Force strikes and in close-quarters combat, it added.
On Saturday night, explosions were heard in central Israel, which were caused by extensive airstrikes in the northern Strip.
IDF ground forces entered the coastal enclave following a weeks-long air campaign in response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion of the northwestern Negev, in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, wounded thousands of others, and abducted more than 250 people the Strip—96 of whom are still there, along with four others who entered Gaza earlier.
Jerusalem’s war goals for Gaza are to destroy Hamas’s capabilities, ensure that it cannot threaten Israel again, and return the captives.
Israeli security forces continue to operate in the Strip. On Friday, the IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announced that Nachal al-Najar, the head of Hamas’s “aerial defense” unit in Gaza, was slain.
Al-Najar had been responsible for planning the aerial infiltrations into the Jewish state during the Oct. 7, 2023, assault. Since the start of the war, he led several attacks against IDF soldiers in the central Strip.
On Saturday, the IDF announced the death in southern Gaza of Capt. Avraham Ben Pinchas, 24, a platoon commander in the 401st Armored Brigade’s 46th Battalion, from Harasha. According to a probe, his tank was hit by a missile during a counter-terror operation in Rafah.
The death toll among Israeli troops since the start of the Gaza ground incursion on Oct. 27 stands at 381, and at 809 on all fronts since the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, according to IDF data.