IDF destroys Hamas arms production plant, launchers found in humanitarian areas
South Gaza rocket launchers used in recent far-reaching barrage on Israel; remaining Beit Hanoun residents told to evacuate as army set to operate in area used in Tuesday strike
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
Fighter jets struck rocket launchers located near aid warehouses in southern Gaza and a weapons manufacturing plant that was embedded within an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, the Israel Defense Force said Wednesday.
The Hamas launchers had been used for recent rocket attacks on southern Israel, the army said.
Also on Wednesday, the army called on Palestinians in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun to head to “shelters in the center of Gaza City.” Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, said the army was preparing to “forcefully and immediately operate” against terror groups in the area after missiles were fired from there at Sderot and Ashkelon on Tuesday.
The IDF has carried out numerous small raids in Beit Hanoun since dismantling the local Hamas battalion there during the initial months of the ground offensive. Not many civilians are thought to remain there. In all of northern Gaza, fewer than 200,000 Palestinians remain, according to recent IDF assessments.
Dozens of rockets were fired over the past week from southern Gaza, mostly at Israeli border communities, but several long-range attacks also targeted the Gan Yavne area near Ashdod and towns near Kiryat Malachi.
According to the IDF, those rockets were fired from launchers belonging to Hamas that were placed next to two humanitarian aid distribution warehouses, including one belonging to UNRWA, the United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees.
The launchers were struck and destroyed, and the IDF said it had identified secondary explosions following the airstrike, indicating that additional weapons were stored there.
“The Hamas terrorist organization regularly violates international law, while systematically exploiting civilian buildings and the civilian population as human shields for terror activity against the State of Israel,” the IDF said.
“Alongside this, the IDF, through COGAT, will continue to work in cooperation with the international aid organizations in the Gaza Strip,” it added.
Dozens more airstrikes were carried out in Gaza over the past day, targeting buildings used by terror groups and cells of operatives, according to the military.
A weapons manufacturing plant was destroyed in an airstrike Tuesday, the IDF said. According to the army, the plant belonged to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and was located within the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in Deir el-Balah, in the Gaza Strip’s center.
The IDF said it took “many steps” to minimize damage to civilians, including the use of aerial surveillance, munitions “adapted to the type of strike,” and other intelligence.
Meanwhile, troops with the 162nd Division killed several gunmen and destroyed sites belonging to terror groups amid operations in Rafah over the past day, the IDF said.
In the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, reservists with the 252nd Division killed several more gunmen in clashes and by calling in airstrikes, the IDF added.
The fighting came as Hamas’s top official in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was unexpectedly elected the terror group’s leader Tuesday, replacing Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in a July 31 explosion in Tehran that has been blamed on Israel.
Iran’s vows to mete out “harsh punishment” on Israel — which has neither confirmed nor denied its role in the blast — have put the region on edge.
Sinwar is considered an architect of Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, when thousands of terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
It is believed that 111 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 39 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 39,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far. The toll, which cannot be independently verified, does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed about 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
