IDF says top commander in Hamas internal security forces killed in south Gaza airstrike
More than 18,000 Palestinian civilians said evacuated from Beit Lahiya in the past day as troops raided shelters, detaining some 100 terror suspects
An Israeli strike on Wednesday night in the southern Gaza Strip killed several Hamas operatives, including a top commander in the terror group’s internal security forces, the military said on Thursday.
Palestinian media reported that some 20 people were killed in the strike in the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in the Khan Younis area, along with at least 19 others in other strikes across the Strip.
The IDF said it took numerous steps to mitigate civilian harm in the strike, including by using a precision munition, aerial surveillance, and other intelligence.
The military said that the Hamas commander, Osama Ghanim, was involved in “activity to suppress the citizens of Gaza and was responsible for detecting threats against Hamas from within the Strip.
“Ghanim held a key role in implementing Hamas’s brutal methods, which included conducting harsh civilian interrogations while violating human rights, suppressing residents suspected of opposing Hamas, and persecuting civilians from the LGBTQ+ community,” the IDF said.
Following the strike, the IDF said it had identified secondary blasts, indicating the presence of weapons in the area. Palestinian media published footage purportedly showing the strike.
لحظة استهداف طيران الاحتلال الحربي لخيام النازحين وارتقاء اكثر من 20 شهيد غربي مدينة خان يونس جنوب قطاع غزة pic.twitter.com/oqXdJOm3ZC
— Newpress | نيو برس (@NewpressPs) December 4, 2024
Gaza medics said the 20 killed in the strike included women and children, though these accounts could not be independently verified.
Palestinians said the strike set several large tents ablaze and exploding cooking gas canisters and burning furniture fueled the fire. The area was strewn with charred clothing, mattresses, and other belongings among the twisted frames of burnt-out shelters, according to the accounts.
Some 2 million Palestinians of the 2.3 million Gazan population are residing in the Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone,” according to IDF assessments. The zone is located in the al-Mawasi area on the southern Strip’s coast, western neighborhoods of Khan Younis, and central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah.
Also Thursday, Army Radio reported that some 18,000 Palestinian civilians have been evacuated from Beit Lahiya in the past day. Before entering the town last month, the IDF estimated that only a few thousand Palestinians were residing there.
During the population’s evacuation from several shelters in the combat zone, troops detained around 100 suspected terror operatives who were taken to Israel for questioning, according to the report.
The military has previously denied it is seeking to forcibly displace Palestinians in Gaza, saying that “the IDF’s warnings to members of the civilian population to temporarily distance themselves from areas expected to be exposed to intense warfare are made in accordance with the obligation under international law to take feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm by providing advance warnings prior to attacks. The IDF only operates in areas in which there is known to be a military presence, and is still at this time working to dismantle Hamas’s military infrastructure in various parts throughout the Gaza Strip.”
Troops killed some 20 terror operatives during fighting in Beit Lahiya in the past day, Army Radio reported, a relatively low figure compared to recent weeks, as the fighting in the area has become less intense.
The incidents came amid a renewed push to secure a hostage-ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas after US President-elect Donald Trump threatened this week to punish those responsible if abductees kidnapped by the Palestinian terror group for over a year aren’t released before his inauguration.
An Israeli official told The Times of Israel on Thursday that a recent Egyptian hostage deal proposal passed on to Hamas offered an extended ceasefire during which hostages in the “humanitarian” category would be released.
Hamas has until now repeatedly refused agreements that do not include a full withdrawal of Israeli troops and a permanent end to the war, which was sparked when some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
It also came as Amnesty International accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza during its war with Hamas in a new report, saying it has sought to deliberately destroy Palestinians by mounting deadly attacks, demolishing vital infrastructure and preventing the delivery of food, medicine and other aid.
The report was swiftly denounced by Israel as based on falsehoods. It was also rejected by Amnesty Israel, the local branch of the Amnesty International organization, with some members accusing the authors of reaching a “predetermined conclusion.”
Meanwhile on Thursday, Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya in the north of the enclave, said a 16-year-old boy who used a wheelchair was killed and several people, including medics, were wounded by Israeli drone fire against the medical facility.
There was no comment from the IDF on Abu Safiya’s account. The health ministry said the three hospitals that are barely operational in northern Gaza have come under repeated attack since the IDF launched an offensive against Hamas in the Strip’s far northern towns of Jabalia, Beit Lahiya, and Beit Hanoun in early September.
So far, the military estimates that it has killed at least 1,750 operatives during the operation, while another 1,300 have been detained, and around 90,000 civilians evacuated from the area.
Thirty-one IDF soldiers have been killed so far in the operation.
Elsewhere in Gaza, medics in Gaza City said an Israeli attack destroyed a house where an extended family had taken shelter and damaged two nearby homes, killing at least three people.
In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, medics said an Israeli strike killed three Palestinians on Thursday, and three others in a separate airstrike in Shejaia, in eastern Gaza City.
There was no immediate IDF comment on those strikes.
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.
Israel has 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.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 382. The toll includes a police officer killed in a hostage rescue mission and a Defense Ministry civilian contractor.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
