Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip shot and killed two terrorists on Saturday in separate incidents.
In the Strip’s north, two Palestinians crossed the Yellow Line and posed a threat to soldiers, the Israeli military said. The troops fired at the terrorists, killing one of them, according to the IDF.
In the southern Strip, a terrorist was spotted crossing the Yellow Line and approaching the troops. IDF soldiers opened fire and eliminated the threat, the army said.
The Yellow Line runs through the north, center and south of the Gaza Strip, between the area the IDF has withdrawn to according to the terms of the truce with Hamas, and the rest of the Strip.
The Israel Defense Forces said Saturday that troops from the 10th “Harel” Reserve Armored Brigade completed operations east of the Yellow Line in the Khan Yunis area as part of the framework for the ceasefire.
The IDF said the brigade had operated in Khan Yunis over the past two months, eliminating dozens of terrorists and dismantling hundreds of Hamas infrastructure sites above and below ground.
During the operations, soldiers located a Hamas tunnel shaft near the Yellow Line and seized weapons and surveillance equipment belonging to the terrorist group. The brigade, which also fought in earlier rounds of combat in Gaza, was redeployed under Southern Command to assist in implementing the ceasefire and to defend nearby Israeli communities, the IDF said.
Meanwhile on Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters in the White House that an international “stabilization force” is expected to be deployed to Gaza “very soon,” CNN reported.
“Gaza is working out very well,” he replied. Contrary to reports in the media, Trump said that the truce is “not tentative. This is a very strong peace. This is peace in the Middle East. Hamas is a very small part of it,” he continued.
“And if they don’t do as they [agreed to in the ceasefire terms], if they don’t behave, then they’ve got themselves a big problem … like they’ve never had. But so far it seems to be working very well,” the American president said.
“We have many countries involved [in the region] …, they want to see peace in the Middle East,” Trump said.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Friday that he instructed the IDF to demolish all terror tunnels in the Gaza Strip. “If there are no tunnels, there is no Hamas,” he tweeted.
On the following day, he added that Israel will continue to operate in Gaza “until the return of all fallen hostages and until the last tunnel.”
Earlier in the week, the minister said that Israel’s policy was to destroy the underground tunnels “within the Yellow Zone,” without restriction.
The ceasefire in Gaza, which took effect on Oct. 10, has for the meantime remained intact despite repeated violations by Hamas, including the killing of three IDF soldiers, and retaliatory strikes throughout the Strip by the Israeli military.
