The Israel Defense Forces issued an evacuation order for Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday for the first time since the start of the war sparked by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border massacre.
“The IDF continues to operate with great force to destroy enemy capabilities and terrorist infrastructure in the area, expanding its activities to an area where it has not previously operated,” Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, head of the Arab Media Branch in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, stated in an X post on Sunday morning.
Adraee in the notice urged residents of the southwestern part of Deir al-Balah to immediately move south to the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone.
The IDF is continuing to press ahead with its ground operations across Gaza as part of “Gideon’s Chariots,” a campaign with the stated goal of dismantling Hamas’s remaining military capabilities, taking control of key areas in Gaza and securing the release of 50 remaining hostages.
Soldiers of the IDF’s 401st “Iron Tracks” Armored Brigade, operating under the command of the 162nd Division, continue to intensify their operations in the Jabalia area of Gaza’s north, the IDF said on Sunday.
So far, the troops discovered and destroyed hundreds of structures used by terrorist groups in the area, in addition to finding many weapons and killing dozens of gunmen, according to the army’s announcement.
In one operation, the brigade’s engineering forces identified and demolished terror tunnels, with a total length of some 2.7 kilometers (1.68 miles) and depth of 20 meters (66 feet), it said.
“Troops of the Southern Command continue to operate against terror groups in Gaza in order to protect Israeli civilians, and particularly the residents of the communities near the Gaza Strip,” stated the military.
Two reservists were seriously wounded while fighting Hamas terrorists in the southern Gaza Strip, the IDF announced on Saturday evening.
The troops—a combat engineering officer in the IDF’s 179th “Re’em” Reserve Armored Brigade and a combat engineering soldier of the 828th Bislamach Brigade—were evacuated for treatment.
(The Bislamach school is the IDF body responsible for the training of all Infantry Corps squad commanders and platoon sergeants. During wartime, the soldiers from its three locations in the Negev make up the Bislamach Brigade.)
Over the weekend, the Israeli Air Force struck approximately 90 targets across the Gaza Strip, including terrorist compounds and underground infrastructure, the military said on Saturday afternoon.
In separate attacks last week, the IDF killed Muhammad Uthayn, a commander of Hamas’s Daraj Tuffah Battalion who invaded the Jewish state on Oct. 7, 2023, and Raed Khaled Hasan Jabayin, a senior Islamic Jihad terrorist who served a prison sentence in Israel from 2006 to 2015.
Also on Friday, the military announced it killed Barhoum Shahin, who headed the Western Gaza District for Hamas’s General Security Apparatus; Asham Tzartzur, who led the terrorist group’s Government Emergency Committee in eastern Gaza; and Faraj al-‘Aoul, the head of Hamas’s “legal bureau” and a member of its legislative council.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has set as his government’s war goals as returning all of the hostages, eliminating Hamas’s military and governing capabilities and neutralizing future threats from Gaza.
