The Israeli Air Force on Sunday “struck and eliminated” a Palestinian terrorist who crossed the ceasefire line in southern Gaza, threatening Israeli soldiers stationed there, the military said.
The Israel Defense Forces “identified a terrorist who crossed the Yellow Line and approached the troops, posing an immediate threat to them,” according to the IDF statement. “Following the identification, the IAF struck and eliminated the terrorist in order to remove the threat.”
The Yellow Line is a demarcation established by the IDF as part of the first phase of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement with Hamas that went into effect in October. Concrete barriers topped with a yellow-painted post mark the area to which the IDF has withdrawn. The line leaves the IDF in control of some 53% of the territory.
On Saturday, the military eliminated three terrorists in three separate incidents in the southern and northern part of the Strip, it said in a statement over the weekend.
In the south, three terrorists were seen crossing the Yellow Line, it said, adding that one of them attempted to steal IDF equipment and escaped.
“Following the identification, the IAF eliminated the terrorist west of the Yellow Line in order to remove the threat,” according to the statement.
In two additional incidents in northern Gaza today, troops identified several terrorists “who crossed the Yellow Line and approached the troops, posing an immediate threat to them,” the army continued, adding that two suspects were eliminated to remove the threat.
Soldiers of the military’s Southern Command remain deployed in Gaza in accordance with the ceasefire agreement “and will continue to operate to remove any immediate threat,” it concluded.
The truce plan brokered by the Trump administration has hit an impasse as Hamas continues in its refusal to give up its weapons.
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on Dec. 6 repeated calls for Israel’s destruction, rejecting U.S.- and U.N.-backed demands to disarm the Iranian-supported terrorist group and demilitarize the Gaza Strip.
“The resistance and its weapons are the honor and pride of the ummah [the Islamic nation],” Mashaal told an anti-Israel summit in Turkey. “A thousand statements are not worth a single projectile of iron.”
The terrorist leader also dismissed “all forms of guardianship, mandate and re-occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and all of Palestine,” rejecting another key part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan, which received unanimous support of the U.N. Security Council on Nov. 17.
An Israeli official told JNS on Saturday that “Hamas has no choice but to disarm, and it will happen either the easy way or the hard way,” adding, “The terror group committed to President Trump’s plan, which includes laying down their weapons. The policy is clear: The terror group will be disarmed one way or another.”
Following a failed projectile launch from the Gaza City area on Thursday, the IDF carried out strikes across the coastal enclave, killing at least six terrorists, as well as destroying “military” infrastructure.
The attacks led to a “significant degradation of Hamas’s and additional terrorist organizations’ operational capabilities and abilities to execute terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops,” the IDF stated.
In a separate incident on Thursday, IDF troops operating in the Jabalia area located a launcher with two loaded rockets that were ready to be fired toward the territory of the State of Israel, the military stated.
