Israel Defense Forces troops on Monday killed four Palestinian terrorists who had opened fire at them in the southern Gaza Strip.
“Four armed terrorists exited an underground tunnel shaft and fired toward IDF troops operating in the Rafah area,” the IDF said in an English-language statement, adding that no soldiers were harmed.
“Following identification, the troops eliminated the terrorists,” the army added. “IDF troops are continuing to operate in the area to locate and eliminate all the terrorists that are in the underground infrastructure.”
The army described the enemy attack as a “blatant violation” of the U.S.-brokered truce deal with Hamas, which went into effect on Oct. 10.
After the agreement went into effect, dozens of terrorists barricaded themselves inside the Rafah tunnel network, which falls within IDF-controlled territory under the U.S.-brokered ceasefire.
As recently as Jan. 30, IDF soldiers identified eight terrorists emerging from the underground infrastructures in eastern Rafah, prompting a series of airstrikes that killed at least three of the gunmen.
In November, around 20 terrorists tried to escape from the besieged tunnel network. Following a 24-hour manhunt, the IDF killed 11 terrorists while detaining another six for questioning in Israel.
At the time, some 60 to 80 Hamas terrorists were believed to remain in the tunnels. Channel 12 cited arrested Hamas operatives as having told Israeli interrogators that they are unable to move from tunnel to tunnel due to ongoing IAF strikes targeting the underground infrastructure.
U.S. President Donald Trump warned on Jan. 21 that Hamas terrorists would be “blown away very quickly” if they fail to lay down their weapons under the second phase of Washington’s peace plan.
However, senior Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on Sunday reiterated the terrorist group’s opposition to Trump’s demands, again vowing “to defeat our enemy, Israel, God willing.”
“As long as our people are under occupation,” he told Al Jazeera, “talk of disarmament is an attempt to turn our people into victims, to make their elimination easier and to facilitate their destruction at the hands of the Israeli side, which is armed with every international means of warfare.”
Mashaal has repeatedly rejected demands to disarm, including on Dec. 6, when he declared that “protecting the resistance project and its weapons is the right of our people to defend themselves.
“The resistance and its weapons are the ummah‘s [Islamic nation’s] honor and pride,” Mashaal told an anti-Israel summit in Istanbul.
