IDF kills Islamic Jihad naval chief in Gaza; Hamas attacks troops securing aid route
RPGs fired at soldiers facilitating corridor for humanitarian trucks, moderately injuring serviceman; sniper who killed IDF commando killed in separate airstrike
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
The commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s naval forces in the Gaza City region, Anas Murad, was killed in a recent drone strike, the Israel Defense Forces said Thursday.
In a separate drone strike, the military said it killed Ahmed al-Masri, an Islamic Jihad member who participated in the October 7 onslaught on Israel led by the Palestinian terror group Hamas, which started the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
The IDF said al-Masri was also responsible for the firing of a large number of rockets from Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood at communities in southern Israel.
Another recent airstrike killed a Hamas sniper who killed an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip, along with some 20 more terror operatives, the IDF and Shin Bet security agency said Thursday.
According to the IDF, the drone strike killed around 20 members of Hamas’s Shati Battalion, including members of the elite Nukhba force, snipers, and operatives who would observe Israeli forces.
Muhammad Abu Hatab, a sniper and a platoon commander in the Shati Battalion, was among those killed.
According to the IDF, Abu Hatab carried out several sniper attacks against Israeli troops in Gaza, including an incident near the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City on July 9, killing Sgt. First Class Tal Lahat, 21, of the Maglan commando unit.
Another terrorist killed in the strike was Ismail Shakshak, who the IDF said was a member of Hamas’s Nukhba force who participated in the October 7 onslaught.
Palestinian media, citing local sources, said there were several Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip on Thursday morning, including against a car in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, which reportedly killed two people.
Meanwhile, in an incident Wednesday in southern Gaza’s Rafah, the IDF said that Hamas operatives fired RPGs at Israeli troops operating along a humanitarian route, while aid trucks were traveling through it.
As a result of the RPG fire, a soldier with the Givati Brigade was moderately wounded, the IDF said.
The IDF said it worked to eliminate the cell behind the attack.
The route, used to deliver aid from the Kerem Shalom Crossing to the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in Gaza, was shuttered for several hours following the attack. The IDF said the trucks eventually reached their destination.
In a statement, the IDF said that it, together with the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), “will continue to operate in accordance with international law in order to allow and facilitate humanitarian aid for civilians in the Gaza Strip.”
Meanwhile, rocket sirens sounded three times Thursday morning in the southern community of Nir Am, close to the border with the Gaza Strip, with the army determining that they were false alarms.
Such “false identifications” of rockets are generally a result of Israeli activity in Gaza or close to the border, such as explosions that cause debris to fly and are mistakenly identified as projectiles heading into Israel.
Israeli forces had carried out several controlled explosions in Gaza close to the border, as part of efforts to establish a buffer zone.
Footage posted to social media shows a large controlled explosion in the Gaza Strip, close to the Israeli border, this morning. pic.twitter.com/G7TYKn59qm
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) July 18, 2024
Also, security forces carried out the controlled explosion of a hand grenade that was found in the dental clinic of Kibbutz Be’eri, where a local security team had made an hours-long stand against Hamas terrorists on October 7 despite being vastly outnumbered and short on weapons and ammunition.
9 חודשים אחרי הטבח: רימון אותר בחצר מרפאת השיניים בקיבוץ בארי ופוצץ באופן מבוקר. pic.twitter.com/9ucE003hSB
— almog boker (@bokeralmog) July 18, 2024
War erupted on October 7 when Hamas led a devastating cross-border attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people. The estimated 3,000 terrorists who burst through the boundary also abducted 251 people who were taken as hostages to Gaza.
Israel responded with a military offensive to destroy Hamas, topple its Gaza regime, and free the hostages.
The fighting has devastated large swaths of Gaza and seriously disrupted humanitarian aid deliveries.
European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday that “the bloodshed in Gaza must stop now,” arguing that too many civilians there “have lost their lives as a result of Israel’s response to Hamas’s brutal terror.”
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 38,000 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 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.
