IDF has demolished over 2,500 buildings in Gaza since start of ceasefire – report
NYT says Israel destroying buildings past Yellow Line, quotes Gazan as saying Hamas ‘militarized civilian spaces,’ gave IDF ‘pretext’; army kills 3 armed men in Khan Younis strike
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Israel has razed over 2,500 buildings in the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire with Hamas took effect in October, The New York Times reported Monday, as the military continued to destroy alleged terror infrastructure.
According to the report, most of the demolitions have been on the Israeli side of the so-called Yellow Line demarcating the areas of control in Gaza, with the Israel Defense Forces telling the US newspaper that it is dismantling tunnels and buildings that have been booby-trapped.
However, the Times said its investigation found that “scores” of buildings on the Hamas-controlled side of the line have also been demolished, some as far as 900 meters (over half a mile) deep.
The report quoted an anonymous IDF official as saying Israel was not “indiscriminately” destroying buildings, and that many of them had collapsed because they sat on top of terror tunnels that the military blew up.
The official did admit that the IDF was demolishing buildings on both sides of the Yellow Line, but said that Israeli forces did not physically cross the line to do so. The Times said it was unable to verify the official’s claim.
“Our memories have been erased,” said Ashraf Nasr, who lived in north Gaza’s Shejaiya, one of the main areas that the IDF is focusing its demolition efforts, before being displaced due to the war. “But Hamas gave Israel the pretext to carry out this disaster. It militarized civilian spaces.”
IDF says it killed 3 armed men in Khan Younis strike
Separately, the IDF announced Monday that it struck and killed three armed operatives and wounded a fourth after they approached troops in the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza near the Yellow Line, in a manner that it said posed an “immediate threat.”
According to the military, troops from the 188th Armored Brigade operating along the ceasefire line identified four armed individuals moving toward Israeli positions, though the IDF did not say whether they crossed into the Israeli-controlled side.
The air force, guided by the troops on the ground, carried out a strike that killed three of them and “neutralized” the fourth, according to the military. The IDF said weapons and equipment intended for gathering intelligence on Israeli forces were later found on their bodies.
According to the UK-based, Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, citing Hamas field sources, the three operatives that the IDF killed Monday were in active pursuit of Gaza militiamen who assassinated senior Hamas police officer Mahmoud al-Astal earlier in the day in Mawasi, near Khan Younis.
After the strike, the anti-Hamas militiamen took the operatives’ weapons, the report said.
Hossam al-Astal, a former Palestinian Authority security officer who leads an anti-Hamas militia near Khan Younis, claimed responsibility for the assassination of the police officer hours after he was killed.
The last name that the militia leader shares with the slain Hamas police officer, al-Astal, is common in southern Gaza.
أعلن حسام الأسطل، الضابط السابق في قوات الأمن التابعة للسلطة الفلسطينية، والذي يقود مجموعة مسلحة تنشط ضد حركة "حماس" في قطاع غزة، مسؤوليته عن اغتيال مدير مباحث شرطة خان يونس، وهو ضابط برتبة مقدّم يُدعى محمود أحمد الأسطل (40 عاما)، ويعد من أبرز قيادات الحركة في القطاع، وذلك قرب… pic.twitter.com/3GfEzEP3Ri
— Asharq News الشرق للأخبار (@AsharqNews) January 12, 2026
Hamas’s interior ministry claimed, without providing evidence, that an initial investigation indicated that al-Astal’s killers, who had not been caught, worked for Israel.
The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Asharq al-Awsat report.
The emergence of armed anti-Hamas groups, though still small and localized, has added pressure on the Islamists and could complicate efforts to stabilize and unify a divided Gaza, shattered by two years of war.
These groups remain unpopular among the local population as they operate in areas under Israeli control, although they publicly deny they take Israeli orders. Hamas has publicly executed people it accuses of collaboration.
The IDF statement on the strike followed reports in Arabic-language media that said Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis received the bodies of at least two people said to have been killed by Israeli drone strikes on the Hamas-controlled side of the ceasefire line.
The reports identified two of the dead as Mahmoud Burayka, 40, and Atef al-Bayouk, who was described as a young man but whose age was not reported.
Other Gaza hospitals also received four people wounded by the IDF in the past 24 hours, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. The statement did not specify where the people were injured or the severity of their wounds.
Palestinian media also reported that a woman arrived at Nasser Hospital Monday after being wounded by IDF gunfire west of Khan Younis. Medics cited by Palestinian media also reported three people wounded by IDF gunfire Sunday night in the Strip’s north, where the IDF said it carried out an airstrike on two suspects who had crossed the ceasefire line and approached Israeli troops near the Jabalia refugee camp.
Additionally, the Hamas-run health ministry reported that a 7-day-old girl and a 4-year-old boy died over the past day as a result of cold exposure, raising the number of such cases this winter season to six. The ministry did not give their names or say where they died.
The ceasefire has ended major combat in Gaza over the past three months, but both sides have accused the other of regular violations. According to figures provided by Hamas, more than 440 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the truce took effect, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
Three IDF soldiers have also been killed in the Strip in the same period.
The Times of Israel Community.