Israeli forces on the ground in Gaza continue to find Hamas terrorist infrastructure located within civilian sites, including the Al-Quds University and the Abu Bakr Mosque, the Israel Defense Forces said on Monday.
Israeli forces uncovered a section of the mosque housing a large number of explosive devices and flammable materials, according to the IDF. Soldiers also confiscated dozens of weapons, military equipment and Hamas operational plans.
IDF troops also found a “large number of weapons” inside the children’s room of the home of a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist.
During operational activity in Beit Hanoun, IDF troops located a tunnel shaft, Hamas intelligence materials and weapons.
“Troops continue to strike the Hamas strongholds in the heart of the Shati Camp and to deepen the raids in the heart of Gaza City,” said IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari during his daily press briefing on Sunday night.
Hagari also said that a total of 20 Hamas terrorists have been arrested and brought to Israel for questioning, including terrorists involved in the Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis in the northwestern Negev. The arrests were made in cooperation with IDF troops, coordinators from the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504.
The names of two more IDF soldiers who fell in battle in the northern Gaza Strip were published on Monday. They are Maj. Issachar Natan, 28, from Kiryat Malachi; and Sgt. Itay Shoham, 21, from Rosh Ha’ayin.
At least 48 IDF soldiers have been killed in action in Gaza and at the Lebanon border since the start of the Gaza ground operation on Oct. 27, and 363 Israeli soldiers have died since the war started.
As Israeli forces close in on the main Hamas headquarters located underneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the United States has conveyed to the IDF their concern about civilians getting caught in the crossfire.
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told the CBS News program “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the United States “does not want to see firefights in hospitals where innocent people, patients receiving medical care, are caught in the crossfire. And we’ve had active consultations with the Israel Defense Forces on this.”
Israel has publicized safe evacuation routes from Gaza’s largest medical complex and is assisting in the evacuations, including of infants. The IDF has provided documentation of their attempt to provide fuel for the hospital, which was blocked by Hamas.
“In the last 24 hours, the IDF delivered 300 liters of fuel to the Shifa Hospital’s doorstep, yet the fuel remains untouched after Hamas threatened hospital staff,” said IDF International Spokesman Lt. Col. (res.) Peter Lerner in a tweet on Monday morning.
Kan News on Sunday also showed video documentation of Hamas terrorists brutally beating Gaza civilians attempting to take food from a humanitarian aid truck in southern Gaza last weekend. The Hamas terrorists instead took the food for themselves.
Sullivan acknowledged Israeli efforts to protect hospital patients “while they also try to figure out a way to try to deal with the fact that Hamas is operating in a way that is outside the bounds of any civilized concept of how you would think about using a hospital, using human shields.”
Israel has provided evidence that Hamas’s main headquarters is located at Shifa, and Sullivan appeared to back this assertion during the interview, saying that “without getting into intelligence information, we can just look at the open source reporting that Hamas is using hospitals as it uses many facilities for command-and-control, for weapons storage, to house its fighters, and this is a violation of the laws of war.”
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