The Israeli military apparently conducted its first ground operation in Gaza ahead of a major offensive, the statement released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Monday suggests.
In a press release issued on Monday morning, the IDF said that it conducted a “targeted raid using tanks in the northern Gaza.” The military disclosed that the limited operation was “part of preparations for the next stages of combat” — an apparent reference to an impending ground offensive.
The IDF statement disclosed on Monday morning:
Overnight, the IDF conducted a targeted raid using tanks in the northern Gaza Strip, as part of preparations for the next stages of combat. The activity was commanded by the Givati Brigade.During the activity, soldiers located and struck numerous terrorists, terror infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts, and operated to prepare the battlefield.The soldiers exited the area at the end of the activity.
The overnight tank raid is reportedly the biggest ground maneuver since the IDF called up 360,000 reservists and began preparing for a military response to the cross-border terrorist attack carried out by Hamas on October 7, which killed 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians. “Israel’s Army Radio described [the raid] as the biggest incursion of the current war,” the Jerusalem Post reported.
Meanwhile, the number of Israeli hostages, including women, children, and elderly, has risen to 224. “The IDF said on Thursday that it had identified 224 hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. In a briefing Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said 309 members of the military had died. Israel police said thus far 808 bodies of Israelis slaughtered in the murderous Hamas attack have been identified,” the Israeli news website Ynet reported.
Hamas is shooting civilians fleeing northern Gaza to escape the combat zone, evidence released by the IDF on Thursday shows.
Since IDF began operations 19 days ago, its have been urging residents of Gaza to leave areas designated for anti-terror strikes. The Israeli military has been dropping leaflets and sending text messages to guide civilians to safe zones.
Hamas, which has a history of using civilians in Gaza as human shields and cannon fodder, has ordered Gazans to ignore Israeli warnings and stay in resident areas where the Islamic terrorist group has dug in terror tunnels and amassed vast amounts of rockets and weaponry — largely smuggled in from Iran.
The Israeli TV channel i24NEWS reported:
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported Hamas continuing to position the residents of the Gaza Strip as a human shield. According to the IDF, terrorists also prevent civilians’ passage to the south of the Gaza Strip.The statement emphasized that Israel has appealed to the Gaza residents to evacuate. “We have seen in the past by placing barriers set up by the terrorist organization,” read the statement.The IDF also released a recording of a conversation between a Unit 504 officer and a resident of the Gaza Strip. In it, the Gazan said that “they [Hamas] are simply sending everyone back home”, blocking the Salah al-Din route. The Gaza resident confirmed that the terrorists were “shooting the people that ask to leave.”
Hundreds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists received combat training in Iran just weeks ahead of the cross-border massacres in southern Israel, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The terrorist training was conducted by the Quds Forces, the foreign terrorist wing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the newspaper added.
Thousands of heavily armed terrorists on pickup trucks, motorcycles, paragliders, and speed boats breached Israel’s southern border and coastal defenses on October 7 — murdering, mutilating, and raping unarmed civilians. At least 1,500 of those terrorists were killed as the IDF and security forces rushed in to flush them out from the Israeli territory.
The WSJ reported:
In the weeks leading up to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, hundreds of the Palestinian Islamist militant group’s fighters received specialized combat training in Iran, according to people familiar with intelligence related to the assault.Roughly 500 militants from Hamas and an allied group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, participated in the exercises in September, which were led by officers of the Quds Force, the foreign-operations arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the people said.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY