Long night fighting in Gaza: The Israeli army was supposed to kill dozens of terrorists

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported heavy fighting with Hamas in the Gaza Strip overnight. There are supposed to be dozens of victims on the side of Hamas. Yemeni rebels said they carried out a large-scale attack against Israel using drones on Thursday night, the umpteenth operation by the Houthis since the beginning of the conflict. The Israeli army has not yet confirmed the attack.

The Israel Defense Forces said Hamas fired anti-tank missiles, detonated explosives and threw grenades at Israeli forces on Thursday night. They responded with artillery fire, tank fire, an airstrike and a missile strike from a naval boat.

The IDF also reported a ground engagement between its troops and Hamas, which was said to have suffered casualties on its side. “At the end of the fighting, dozens of terrorists were killed,” the Israeli army said in an official statement, according to the BBC.

The Israel Defense Forces say they have continued to attack Hamas sites in the Gaza Strip, including weapons production and storage facilities, anti-tank missile launch sites and drone launch sites. This was reported by The Times of Israel.

According to Reuters, the press department of the Hamas government said that Israeli forces killed 195 people in an attack on the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. At least 777 people were said to have been injured in the attack, and around 120 are missing. The Israeli army said that the attacks in the camp were aimed at leading figures of Hamas.

Reuters pointed out that the claims by both sides could not be independently verified. United Nations Office according to TV Al Jazeera said the disproportionate attacks on the refugee camp could constitute a “war crime”. About 116,000 people live in the camp and it is the largest refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.

In an interview with Lebanon’s LBCI television, a spokesman for the Hamas movement said that “everything they are doing is justified” and that they are ready to repeat the October 7 attack until Israel is destroyed. “Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove this country because it represents a security, military and political disaster for the Arab and Islamic nation and it must end. We are not ashamed of it, we say it with full force,” Ghazi said on television Hamad.

A high-ranking member of Hamas, Musa Abu Marzouk, in an interview with the Arabic channel Russia Today last Friday, answered the question of why Hamas dug hundreds of kilometers in its territory, but did not build shelters for civilians from bombing. “We built the tunnels because we have no other way to protect ourselves from being killed in airstrikes. We fight from inside the tunnels,” Marzúk said, according to The Times of Israel. He added that, according to him, the protection of civilians is the responsibility of the UN.

Tensions are rising across the region. US forces have seen attacks in Iraq and Syria. They have been attacked 23 times this month, The Times of Israel reported on Monday. “From October 17 to October 30, US and coalition forces were attacked at least 14 times in Iraq and nine times in Syria,” the official said, referring to members of the international coalition against the Islamic State. According to Washington, the attacks were carried out using a combination of one-way attack drones and missiles, most of which were not able to reach their targets “thanks to robust defenses”.

An attack using drones

Yemeni rebels were to carry out an attack against Israel with the help of drones on Thursday night. According to the insurgents, they managed to hit several targets. Their drones were supposed to get beyond Eliat, Israel’s southernmost city. But the Israeli army did not confirm the attack, The Times of Israel pointed out. According to the Israeli army, the Houthis are responsible for the drone attack on Tuesday and last Friday.

According to the BBC, the Israeli army said another of its soldiers was killed in fighting in northern Gaza, bringing the total number of Israeli soldiers killed since the ground operation began last Friday to 17.

Hundreds more are expected to cross from Gaza into Egypt via the Rafah crossing on Thursday. According to the representative of Gaza, Wael Abu Mohsen, two buses with 100 passengers with foreign passports entered the terminal in the morning, The Times of Israel quoted him with reference to the AFP agency. Egyptian and Palestinian officials said 400 foreigners and dual nationals were expected to cross on Thursday, along with 60 to 100 sick and injured Gazans.

Israelis are getting used to the new reality. The worst is the situation in the Gaza Strip:

TN.cz