Israel Defense Forces (IDF) intensified the military operation in Gaza after terrorist group Hamas violated the ceasefire. Israeli military re-launched the ground, air and naval offensive after Gaza-based terrorists began firing rockets into Israel and halted the release of hostages agreed under the ceasefire deal.
The IDF hit more than 400 terrorist targets since resuming the Gaza offensive. “Over the past day, the IDF struck over 400 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip,” the IDF said in press release on Saturday morning. “Overnight, IAF fighter jets struck over 50 targets in the area of Khan Yunis.”
On Saturday morning, the IDF disclosed the details of the ongoing military operation:
IDF troops carried out artillery fire and directed aerial strikes in the northern Gaza Strip. These strikes included a strike by an aircraft on a terrorist cell that was ambushing IDF troops and a strike by a fighter jet on a mosque used by the Islamic Jihad as an operational command center.Furthermore, IDF troops directed aircraft to strike terror targets and struck other targets from the ground and from the air. Among the targets were a weapons storage compound and terror infrastructure used for renewal of Hamas’ terror capabilities.Moreover, overnight, Israeli Navy troops carried out a targeted operational activity in the Khan Yunis marina and Deir al-Balah in the southern Gaza Strip, during which they struck Hamas military targets using precise munitions, as well as striking infrastructure and equipment used by the Hamas Naval Forces.
A key objective of the IDF operation is to eliminate Hamas’s leadership and dismantle its terrorist infrasture, including tunnels, fortifications, weapons depots, spread across the 140 square miles of Gaza territory.
“The targets included operational command centers in which Hamas terrorists were operating, underground sites, and a military compound from which anti-tank missiles were launched at soldiers earlier in the day,” the Israeli broadcaster Arutz Sheva reported Saturday.
Prime Minister Netanyahu on Saturday pulled out the Israeli hostage negotiating team from Qatar in response to Hamas’ violation of the ceasefire, signalling that Israel was determined to wipe out terrorist group on the battlefield. The terrorists-for-hostages deal was brokered by the Biden White House and the Qatari regime, the leading Arab backer of the Islamic terrorist group Hamas.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Mossad chief David Barnea and his team to return from Qatar due to a “dead end” in negotiations that took place in Doha on Saturday, the Prime Minister’s Office said,” the Jerusalem Post reported Saturday afternoon.
Hamas had assured Israeli negotiators of the release of Shiri Bibas and her two infants — 4-year-old Ariel and 10-momth-old Kfir — before breaching the ceasefire which lasted seven days, the Israeli media reported Saturday.
After dragging their release for a week, Hamas claimed that the mother and her two kids had died after they were handed over to the another Gaza-based terrorist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Before they could be released, Hamas resumed attacks on IDF soldiers in Gaza and began firing rockets into Israel, suggesting the terrorist groups intention not to free the Bibas family or reveal the truth about their whereabouts.
The Times of Israel reported Saturday morning:
Palestinian terror group Hamas was supposed to release Shiri Bibas, 32, and her young children Ariel Bibas, 4, and Kfir Bibas, 10 months old, who were taken hostage on October 7 to the Gaza Strip, and violated the multi-day truce agreement with Israel this week when it failed to do so, according to the Israeli military.The mother and children were abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, along with Shiri’s husband and the father of the two boys, Yarden Bibas, 34, as Hamas-led terrorists rampaged through southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people, a majority of them civilians in their homes and at an outdoor music festival.
The Israeli air force reportedly carried out strikes near the Syrian capital of Damascus, hitting targets belonging to Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, the European and Arab media reports claim.
The Israeli air raid killed at least two members of Iran’s Islamic Guard (IRGC), regime’s foreign terrorist arm, and two Hezbollah terrorists. The IDF did not confirm the anti-terror raid.
The British newspaper Telegraph reported:
Two officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were killed in an Israeli strike on Syria this morning.An air strike near Damascus was earlier said to have killed two “fighters working for Hezbollah”, according to Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.The IRGC has now said two of its officers – named as Mohammad Ali Atai Shoorcheh and Panah Taghizadeh – were “martyred” by the “Zionists” while on an advisory mission to the country.Seven other Hezbollah fighters were earlier reported to have been injured in the attack.Israel has not commented.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah continues to launch missiles and mortars into northern Israel from its positions in Lebanon. The IDF carried out retaliatory operations.
“A short while ago, two mortar shell launches toward the area of Shomera in northern Israel were identified,” the Israeli military said in statement Saturday. “The mortars fell in open areas. In response, the IDF struck the source of the launches and fired artillery toward a number of locations in Lebanese territory.”
Iran-backed Hezbollah reportedly used the recent lull in the fighting to regroup and rearm itself in order to strike Israel from the north. “Hezbollah used informal truce to rearm, army believes purely defensive strategy won’t suffice to decisively counter Shiite terror army,” the Israeli news website Ynet reported Saturday.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY