IDF hits over 100 terror targets as ground operation expands in Gaza City

The Israel Defense Forces on Friday expanded operations in Gaza City, eliminating terrorists using tank fire, armed UAVs and airstrikes, while dismantling terrorist infrastructure and locating weapons in the area.

Among the Hamas assets destroyed were tunnel shafts, booby-trapped structures, sniper posts and buildings used by terrorists.

In one encounter, troops from the 162nd Division identified several terrorists roughly 200 meters from IDF positions and eliminated them through rapid targeting.

Soldiers located numerous weapons, including rifles and grenades, and also discovered an explosive device hidden among the rubble by Hamas terrorists. The troops also dismantled over 20 military infrastructure sites, including observation posts.

Over the past 24 hours, the Israeli Air Force struck approximately 100 targets across Gaza, including underground military sites, weapons storage facilities and terrorist cells.

Meanwhile, the IDF continues operations in the northern Gaza Strip. During their activity, soldiers directed an IAF aircraft that killed Sim Mahmoud Yusuf Abu Alkhir, the deputy head of Military Intelligence in Hamas’s Bureij Battalion.

According to the IDF, the terrorist was involved in planning and carrying out attacks against both troops and Israeli civilian areas.

Before the strike, measures were taken to minimize collateral damage, including the use of precision munitions and aerial surveillance.

In the southern Gaza Strip, IDF troops continue advancing in the Khan Yunis and Rafah areas, eliminating terrorists who posed a threat and destroying dozens of Hamas assets.

On Thursday evening, the IDF announced that four soldiers had been killed in an IED blast in southern Gaza. The slain troops were identified as Maj. Omri Chai Ben Moshe, 26, from Moshav Tzafria; Lt. Ron Arieli, 20, from Hadera; Lt. Eran Shelem, 23, from Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan; and Lt. Eitan Avner Ben Itzhak, 22, from Har Bracha.

The death toll among Israeli troops since the start of the Gaza ground incursion on Oct. 27, 2023, now stands at 464, and at 910 on all fronts since the Hamas-led massacre on Oct. 7, 2023.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that Israeli forces took down 25 “terror towers” in Gaza City at the start of major ground operations in the last Hamas stronghold the previous day.

Katz warned that if Hamas does not release the remaining 48 hostages and lay down its weapons, then “Gaza will be destroyed and turned into a monument to the rapists and murderers of Hamas.”

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir held a situational assessment in the Strip on Tuesday, where he praised soldiers and urged them “to intensify blows against Hamas and to decisively defeat the Gaza City Brigade.”

Zamir said forces were carrying out “the most moral and important duty—the return of all the hostages and the dismantling of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities.”