IDF: Dozens of terror operatives killed in overnight raid in north Gaza’s Beit Hanoun
Several more gunmen killed in adjacent town of Beit Lahiya; military says it hit Hamas command center in former clinic in Jabalia, three cells in Gaza City
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent

Dozens of terror operatives were killed in an overnight raid carried out by troops of the Givati Infantry Brigade in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun, the Israel Defense Forces said on Sunday.
According to the military, the Givati troops raided an area of Beit Hanoun where there was a “concentration of terrorists” following intelligence information on “the presence of terrorists in the area.”
During the operation, which also involved airstrikes, dozens of gunmen were killed, and several other terror operatives were detained, the IDF said.
In a separate operation in the adjacent town of Beit Lahiya, the IDF added, troops of the Kfir Brigade killed several terror operatives in ground combat and by directing airstrikes. The soldiers also located and destroyed weapons in the area.
Meanwhile, earlier Sunday, the IDF said it carried out an airstrike against Hamas operatives at a command center embedded within a building that formerly housed the Abu Shabak medical clinic in Jabalia.
“The compound was used by the Hamas terrorists to plan and carry out terror activity against IDF troops and the State of Israel, and many weapons used by the Hamas terrorists were stored there,” the military said.
Israeli airstrikes in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun, in a video released by the IDF on December 15, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)
The IDF also said that on Saturday night, fighter jets struck three terror cells in Gaza City, whose members were planning to carry out attacks against troops in the “immediate time frame.”
In all of the strikes, the IDF said it took steps to mitigate civilian harm, including by using precision munitions, aerial surveillance and other intelligence. Gaza-based medics said that nine people were killed Sunday in Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia. Residents said clusters of houses were bombed and some set ablaze in the three towns.

The latest operations came amid a months-long IDF offensive against Hamas in the Strip’s far northern towns of Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, launched in early September.
So far, the military estimates that it has killed at least 2,000 operatives during the recent operation, while another 1,500 have been detained, and around 90,000 civilians evacuated from the area. Thirty-four IDF soldiers have been killed so far in the operation.
The war in Gaza erupted with Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, murdering some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 386. The toll includes a police officer killed in a hostage rescue mission and a Defense Ministry civilian contractor.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 44,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle as of November and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7, 2023, or in the following few days.
Israel has repeatedly said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Reuters contributed to this report.