Israel hits over 100 Hamas targets in Gaza
Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck over 100 Hamas terror targets in the Gaza Strip during the previous 24 hours as Israel’s combined ground, naval and aerial offensive continued across the coastal enclave.
Israeli soldiers in Gaza on Dec. 25, 2023. Photo by IDF Spokesperson
Among the targets hit were tunnel shafts, terror infrastructure and military sites, the Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday.
Additionally, soldiers engaged a terrorist squad in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza. The terrorists were killed and the building they were operating in was destroyed.
In Khan Yunis in the south of the Strip, an Israeli aircraft eliminated over ten terrorists and, in a separate incident, destroyed a building where weapons were stored and eliminated a terror squad moving toward the building.
Israeli forces conducted searches of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad headquarters in the Daraj a-Tupah neighbourhood of Gaza City, locating weapons, explosive charges and ammunition, along with intelligence documents and military equipment.
New Evidence Links Hospital to Hostages, Massacre
Meanwhile, Israeli forces from the Israeli Navy’s Shayetet 13 commando unit and the 551st Brigade found the car of an Israeli hostage and a white Hamas pickup truck during a raid of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, the IDF said on Monday night.
Weapons were located in the Hamas vehicle, which the IDF said was similar to those used by terrorists during the Oct. 7 massacre in the northwestern Negev.
The hostage’s car, a Toyota Corolla with Israeli license plates, belonged to the family of Samar Talalka, who was kidnapped on Oct. 7 and mistakenly killed by Israeli forces on Dec. 15 along with two other hostages after escaping their Hamas captors.
Inside the car, troops found blood stains which were identified as belonging to another Israeli hostage. Parts of a rocket propelled grenade launcher were also found in the vehicle.
The IDF said that there is extensive terror infrastructure within the hospital, which was used as a meeting place for Hamas terrorists to manage the fighting and a base for senior Hamas officials and operatives. “The hospital has extensive terrorist infrastructure and nearby there are shafts leading to a tunnel route in the hospital area,” the IDF said.
At least 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on Oct. 7. The number of men, women, children, soldiers and foreigners held captive in Gaza by Hamas is now believed to be 129. Other people remain unaccounted for as Israeli authorities continue to identify bodies and search for human remains.
