The Israel Defense Forces destroyed four Hamas weapons storage facilities in a series of overnight strikes in central Gaza, the military said on Thursday.
The facilities contained Kalashnikov rifles, RPGs, grenades, explosive devices and “additional military equipment,” according to the IDF.
The military said the weapons, intended for use in attacks on soldiers operating near the ceasefire line and Israeli civilians, were dismantled “in order to remove the threat.”
Precautions were taken to reduce harm to noncombatants, including advance warnings, the use of precision-guided munitions and aerial surveillance, the IDF added.
On Wednesday, the IDF eliminated the commander of a Hamas sniper battalion, it said in a separate statement on Thursday.
Omar Ahmed Abu Qasem, a commander in Hamas’s “military wing,” was killed in a strike in central Gaza, according to the statement.
“Throughout the war, Abu Qasem took part in carrying out terror attacks against IDF troops in the Gaza Strip,” the military stated.
In recent months, the terrorist helped rebuild Hamas’s military capabilities and “advanced additional terror attacks against IDF troops, in violation of the ceasefire agreement,” the statement continued.
Soldiers remain deployed in the enclave in accordance with the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement “and will continue to operate to remove any immediate threat,” it added.
The Oct. 10, 2025, truce in the Gaza Strip ended the two-year war that began when Hamas, other Palestinian terrorist groups and Gazan “civilians” invaded the northwestern Negev on Oct. 7, 2023, killing approximately 1,200 people, primarily civilians, and taking 251 hostages.
