IDF soldier killed in Gaza; three terrorists who took part in Oct. 7 onslaught eliminated
Death of Staff Sgt. Noam Israel Abdu brings Israel’s toll in ground offensive against Hamas to 350; another soldier seriously wounded
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
An Israeli soldier was killed during a fresh ground operation in the northern Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces announced on Tuesday.
Staff Sgt. Noam Israel Abdu, 20, of the Bislamach Brigade’s 17th Battalion, from the central town of Kadima-Zoran, was killed on Monday as troops battled Hamas in northern Gaza’s Jabaliya.
The Bislamach Brigade is the IDF’s School for Infantry Corps Professions and Squad Commanders during peacetime. Abdu, who was a member of the Golani Brigade’s 12th Battalion, served with Bislamach as he was going through a squad commander’s course at the school.
His death brought Israel’s death toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in operations along the border to 350. The toll comprises 348 soldiers, a police officer killed in a hostage rescue mission, and a civilian Defense Ministry contractor.
The IDF said another soldier with the battalion was seriously wounded in the same incident in which Abdu was killed.
On Sunday, the IDF said that troops of the 162nd Division had encircled Jabaliya in a new ground operation targeting efforts by Hamas to reestablish itself in northern Gaza.
The military said the operation was launched following intelligence on Hamas operatives and infrastructure as the terror group engaged in efforts to regroup there.
Several dozen terror operatives were killed in airstrikes and tank shelling as the offensive began, according to the IDF.
On Tuesday, the IDF said some 20 Hamas operatives were killed in airstrikes and close-quarters combat in Jabaliya over the past day.
Troops also located and destroyed a weapons depot and other weapons amid the fighting, according to the military.
“The operation will continue as long as necessary, while systematically striking and thoroughly destroying the terror infrastructure in the area,” the military said.
Prior to the operation, the 162nd Division was withdrawn from Rafah and the Philadelphi Corridor — the Egypt-Gaza border area — after five months there, and handed over responsibility for the area to the IDF’s Gaza Division, the first time that the regional division was given responsibility over a large portion of the Strip.
The IDF said there was no reduction in forces in the Egypt-Gaza border area, and troops were continuing to operate there.
The operation marked the fourth push into Jabaliya by the IDF since the start of the war a year ago. The most recent round of fighting there in May was described by the IDF and some officers as “intense” and the “most violent” of the war.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians are believed by Israel to still be in northern Gaza despite repeated evacuation orders, among them thousands of terror operatives who survived previous IDF operations that saw Hamas’s battalions in the area dismantled.
On Monday, the IDF called on Palestinians in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun, Jabaliya, and Beit Lahiya to evacuate to the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in the Strip’s south.
A day earlier, the IDF said that it was preparing to evacuate civilians from all of north Gaza, and would increase the size of the humanitarian zone.
The zone, where the vast majority of the Gazan population currently resides, is where most humanitarian aid is being delivered. There are also field hospitals there.
The military also said it was opening up two evacuation routes for Palestinians — along the Salah a-Din road and the coastal road. Aid groups have warned against repeated displacement of already malnourished Palestinians.
In the central Gaza Strip, the IDF said Tuesday the 14th Reserve Armored Brigade launched a new raid in the Bureij area, where it said troops were demolishing Hamas infrastructure and killing gunmen.
Also in the past day, the IDF said 70 Hamas sites were struck across the Gaza Strip by fighter jets and other aircraft.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the IDF and Shin Bet security agency said that three Hamas terrorists who participated in the October 7 onslaught were killed in airstrikes in recent days.
According to the military, a strike on a Hamas command room embedded within a school in Gaza City on September 30 killed several Hamas operatives, including Muhammad Rafai.
Rafai participated in the massacre at Kfar Aza and Nahal Oz on October 7, and was involved in other attacks on troops throughout the war, according to the military.
Another strike, on October 1, killed two more Hamas terrorists, named by the IDF as Muhammad Zanun and Bassel Akhars, who the military says participated in the October 7 attack.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 41,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting there so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle as of August 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.
The Times of Israel Community.