IDF says at least 40 Hamas operatives killed as it advances in Gaza’s Shejaiya

At least 40 Hamas operatives have been killed by Israeli troops in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood during a new pinpoint raid there, the Israel Defense Forces said on Sunday.

The figure refers to gunmen identified by the IDF after the battles. The army said that more operatives were likely killed in strikes against buildings and tunnels.

The IDF also said it had killed gunmen in Rafah, but did not give a number. The army said it destroyed several tunnel shafts in Gaza’s southernmost city. Meanwhile, forces continued to operate in central Gaza’s Netzarim Corridor.

Amid the fighting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to conduct a situational assessment of the war at the IDF’s Southern Command. The premier reiterated on Sunday that Israel “will not end the war until we achieve all our goals.”

Meanwhile, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said in a statement on Sunday that fuel shortages would shut down all remaining hospitals, health facilities and oxygen generators in the Strip if more fuel did not arrive within the next 48 hours.

The operation in Shejaiya, launched on Thursday, came after the IDF said it had identified Hamas operatives regrouping in the area, as well as new intelligence on the terror group’s infrastructure.

The raid is being carried out by the 98th Division with two brigades: the 7th Armored Brigade and Paratroopers Brigade.

The IDF said troops under the division located weapons, raided Hamas combat complexes — some of which were booby-trapped — and killed several gunmen.

The army first operated in Shejaiya during the initial months of the ground offensive against Hamas. The terror group’s local battalion was dismantled in December, according to the army.

Hamas last returned to the Gaza City neighborhood in April, as the IDF shifted its operations in the Strip to targeted raids.

According to the military, surviving Hamas operatives in northern Gaza have been able to regroup in Shejaiya, and have succeeded in recruiting new members.

In the current Shejaiya operation, the IDF said it has been able to reach previously undiscovered tunnel networks and Hamas sites, using intelligence obtained during other operations in Gaza.

Many tunnels were demolished in the initial offensive in the neighborhood, but not all were discovered at the time.

The latest operation began Thursday with a raid against a school complex in Shejaiya that Hamas operatives had turned into a “combat complex,” according to the military.

The IDF said troops reached the complex within 40 minutes and found a long-range rocket launcher in the area. The site was in an area the army had not reached in previous operations in Shejaiya.

The raid against the school provided the IDF with valuable intelligence on Hamas activities, military officials said.

IDF troops in Shejaiya are encountering fierce resistance, with dozens of attacks. Troops have seen RPG fire, explosive devices, sniper attacks, and some close-quarters combat, the army said.

Two soldiers were killed and three were seriously wounded in separate incidents in Shejaiya over the weekend.

The United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA estimated that “60,000 to 80,000 people were displaced” from Shejaiya since the new fighting broke out there on Thursday and the army issued evacuation orders.

The army said it expects the operation in Shejaiya to last no longer than a few weeks, similar to other pinpoint raids in the northern Gaza Strip that have been carried out in recent months.

Meanwhile, in southern Gaza’s Rafah, troops continued with “targeted, intelligence-based operations,” the army said on Sunday.

Forces with the 162nd Division killed several terror operatives and demolished tunnel shafts. A mortar launcher hidden in a tunnel shaft was also struck, the military said.

Tanks pushed deeper into several districts in the east, west and center of the city. Medics at Nasser Hospital said six people were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in Shaboura, in the heart of the city.

Reuters cited residents as saying that the army had torched the Al-Awda mosque in Rafah’s center. The military did not comment on the matter.

Israel has said its operation in Rafah is necessary to dismantle Hamas’s last battalions there.

Netanyahu reiterated on Sunday that Israel remained committed to eliminating Hamas.

“We are committed to fighting until we achieve all of our objectives: Eliminating Hamas, returning all of our hostages, ensuring that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to Israel and returning our residents securely to their homes in the south and the north,” he said at a weekly cabinet meeting.

“To anyone who doubts the achievement of these goals, I repeat: there is no substitute for victory,” added Netanyahu. “Our warriors did not fall in vain. We will not end the war until we achieve all our goals.”

The premier is scheduled to lead an assessment of the Gaza war later in the day, at the IDF’s Southern Command.

The assessment comes amid reported changes the United States, Egypt and Qatar are making to a draft proposal in truce-for-hostage talks that the countries are mediating between Israel and Hamas. The latest draft is based on an Israeli proposal outlined by US President Joe Biden in a May 31 speech.

צוואת הנופלים היא המשימה שלנו. נעמוד בה.

דבריי בפתח ישיבת הממשלה >> pic.twitter.com/3sVuXYS7O4

— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) June 30, 2024

“Today, everyone knows a simple truth,” Netanyahu said at Sunday’s cabinet meeting, “Hamas is the only obstacle to the release of our hostages.”

Only “a combination of political and military pressure — above all, military pressure” would bring back the hostages, he said.

Kan reported on Saturday, citing an Arab source with knowledge of the matter, that the new draft referenced a “ceasefire” and “full withdrawal” of Israeli forces from Gaza. Hamas has said it would refuse any deal that didn’t require Israel to permanently end the fighting.

The public broadcaster said that Israel had approved of the changes, and preferred to restart negotiations while the army was still in Rafah.

Hamas and Israel both downplayed the effort to “bridge the gap” between them, with Osama Hamdan, a member of the terror group’s politburo, saying to reporters in Beirut on Saturday that the changes were “a waste of time.”

Mediators have so far failed to reach a truce between Israel and Hamas, since a weeklong ceasefire in November saw the terror group release of 105 hostages.

It is believed that 120 hostages remain in Gaza, 116 of whom were abducted by Hamas on October 7, when thousands of terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip has claimed the lives of over 37,800 people, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry. The toll, which cannot be verified, does not distinguish between civilians and fighters, of whom Israel says it killed about 15,000, along with some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.