With Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas obstructing the hostage talks underway in Qatari capital, Doha, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is intensifying the operation “Gideon’s Chariots,” which began at midnight Friday.
“Negotiations in Doha over a potential hostage deal with Hamas have yet to produce progress,” the Israeli news website Ynet reported Monday. “Meanwhile, the IDF stepped up military operations in Gaza.”
The Israeli military operation seeks to achieve the twin objectives of freeing the remaining hostages and eliminating Hamas as a terrorist fighting force in Gaza. “As we promised, we have launched a powerful campaign against Hamas, ‘Gideon’s Chariots’,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Sunday. “IDF forces are simply entering with force into the Gaza Strip with a dual goal: defeating Hamas and freeing our hostages.”
The IDF, on Monday, disclosed the details of the ongoing operation, saying the “troops are continuing their operational activity against the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip, dismantling terrorist infrastructure sites, and eliminating terrorists, as part of the ‘Gideon’s Chariots’ operation.”
On Monday morning, the IDF issued an evacuation order for most of Khan Younis, a Hamas stronghold in southern Gaza. The move is aimed at minimizing civilian casualties ahead of a major offensive in the area, media reports indicate.
“The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has ordered residents of Khan Younis to evacuate as it prepares to launch an ‘unprecedented attack’,” the BBC noted. “People were ordered to move towards al-Mawasi in the west of the strip, in one of the largest evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military in recent months.”
Israeli fighter jets continued to hit Hamas terror sites all across Gaza. “Over the past day, the Israeli Air Force struck over 160 terror targets in the Gaza Strip,” the military revealed.
“In northern Gaza, terrorist cells, anti-tank missile launch posts, and military structures were struck. In the central Gaza Strip, underground infrastructure, and a weapons storage facility were struck, and in southern Gaza, terrorist cells, military structures, anti-tank missile launch posts, and booby-trapped structures were struck,” the IDF added.
With the IDF intensifying military operations, Israel has resumed the aid delivery to Gaza on humanitarian grounds despite Hamas’ track record of hoarding supplies or funneling them to its fighters. “The IDF allowed humanitarian aid to start to enter Gaza on Monday after a two-and-a-half-month pause dating back to early March,” the Jerusalem Post reported.
A top Hamas-linked terrorist was reportedly eliminated on Monday morning by IDF special forces in Khan Younis. “A senior Palestinian terror operative was killed in an Israeli operation in the southern Gaza Strip early Monday morning,” The Times of Israel reported.
The slain terrorist was identified as Ahmad Sarhan, a ‘senior commander’ of the so-called Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), an Iran-sponsored terrorist group which takes direct orders from Hamas.
“The military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, a small terrorist organization operating in the Gaza Strip, announced the death of Ahmad Sarhan, following reports that the senior figure was killed in an Israeli commando raid this morning,” the Times of Israel added.
The Ynet described Sarhan as “a senior commander in the Al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees.”
IDF’s Golani Brigade, together with the Yahalom Unit, which specializes in tunnel warfare and demolition, destroyed a Hamas tunnel that was used in a recent terror attack that killed two Israeli soldiers in early May.
“In precision strike deep in Gaza’s Morag Corridor, Golani Brigade and Yahalom Unit troops dismantle a terror tunnel used in the deadly attack on Captain Noam Ravid and Staff Sgt. Yaly Seror,” the Israeli news website Arutz Sheva reported Monday.
The terror tunnel was located near the Morag Corridor, a buffer zone created by the IDF which separates the twin Hamas strongholds of Khan Yunis and Rafah, the military confirmed.
“In recent days, Yahalom Unit soldiers, under the brigade’s command, dismantled the tunnel into which the terrorists fled after they detonated the explosive device that killed Captain Noam Ravid and Staff Sergeant Yaly Seror, and injured two additional soldiers,” the IDF disclosed in a press release Monday.
“After detonating the explosive device, the terrorists escaped through a booby-trapped tunnel shaft toward an underground terror tunnel stretching hundreds of meters. In a precise operation, the soldiers located the tunnel route and dismantled it,” the IDF added.
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