IDF strike in south Gaza kills senior Hamas official; ground ops restart in Beit Hanoun
Military says troops in northern Strip’s Beit Hanoun to destroy Hamas infrastructure, expanding buffer zone along border; IDF issues ‘urgent’ evacuation warning for Rafah’s Tel Sultan
An Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip late Saturday killed Hamas political leader Salah al-Bardawil, the military and the Palestinian terror group confirmed Sunday.
Bardawil was a well-known member of the terror group’s political wing who gave media interviews over the years.
In a statement, the terror group accused Israel of assassinating Bardawil and his wife with a drone strike on a tent shelter in Khan Younis, in the south of the Palestinian enclave, overnight. “His blood, that of his wife and martyrs, will remain fueling the battle of liberation and independence. The criminal enemy will not break our determination and will,” said the terror group Sunday morning.
The Israel Defense Forces in a later statement confirmed it had killed Bardawil.
According to the IDF, Bardawil, who headed the terror group’s planning and development ministry, led Hamas’s strategic and military planning, including amid the war.
His killing was a “blow to the functioning of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities,” the IDF added.
Bardawil was the third Hamas political official to have been killed in renewed Israeli airstrikes. The terror group’s de facto government head Issam Da’alis and internal security chief Mahmoud Abu Watfa were killed on Tuesday, along with several other officials.
Many other members of the politburo were killed earlier in the fighting, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly saying that one of the main aims of the war is to destroy Hamas both as a military and a governing entity. The war was sparked by the terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught.
Hamas-run medical authorities in Gaza said that at least 19 people, including Bardawil, were killed in strikes overnight. Tolls issued by Hamas authorities cannot be independently verified or confirmed and do not differentiate between combatants and civilians.
Witnesses said explosions were heard across the Strip on Saturday night and the early hours of Sunday.
On Sunday morning the IDF announced that it had restarted ground operations in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun a day earlier.
The military said the offensive there was aimed at destroying Hamas’s infrastructure and expanding a buffer zone along the border.
During the operation, Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck several Hamas targets in the area.
The IDF said that it was enabling Palestinian civilians to evacuate the “combat zone for their safety.”
On Friday, Defense Minister Israel Katz said he instructed the IDF to seize additional areas of the Gaza Strip if Hamas refused to release hostages.
“If the Hamas terror organization continues to refuse to release the hostages, I instructed the IDF to capture additional areas, evacuate the population, and expand the security zone around Gaza for the protection of Israeli communities and IDF soldiers, through a permanent hold of the area by Israel,” Katz said. “As long as Hamas continues its refusal, it will lose more and more land that will be added to Israel.”
Annexing parts of Gaza would likely draw a massive international backlash. Israel has largely refrained from annexing areas that it has captured except for East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Both cases remain mainly unrecognized by the international community.
Also on Sunday, the IDF issued an “urgent” and immediate evacuation warning for Palestinians residing in the Tel Sultan neighborhood of southern Gaza’s Rafah.
In a post on X, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, Col. Avichay Adraee, published a map of the area that was to be evacuated, saying that “the area you are in is considered a dangerous combat zone” as the military carries out operations there.
Gazans were instructed to move on foot immediately via the so-called Gush Katif road toward the al-Mawasi area on the southern Strip’s coast.
“Movement in vehicles is prohibited,” Adraee said, warning Gazans that staying in Tel Sultan or traveling via other routes “puts your life and the lives of your families at risk.
“Evacuate the area immediately,” he said.
The IDF has been calling on Palestinians to evacuate combat zones to “recognized humanitarian shelters” in the Strip, but not to what used to be Israel’s designated “humanitarian zone” in the southern part of Gaza. In the IDF’s recent maps issued to Gazans, the zone has been removed.
#عاجل ‼️ انذار عاجل الى سكان قطاع غزة المتواجدين في منطقة تل السلطان في رفح
⭕️بدأ جيش الدفاع هجوماً لضرب المنظمات الإرهابية حيث تعتبر المنطقة التي تتواجدون فيها منطقة قتال خطيرة.
⭕️شارع غوش قطيف يعتبر مسارًا إنسانيًا لاستخدامكم من أجل الانتقال الى منطقة المواصي.
????نحذركم:… pic.twitter.com/7uY6g8GBEV
— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) March 23, 2025
Later on Sunday, the IDF announced that troops had completed the encirclement of Tel Sultan.
According to the military, the operation — which began overnight — was meant “to destroy terrorist infrastructure and eliminate terrorists in the area, with the aim of deepening control and expanding the security area in the southern Gaza Strip.”
IDF troops killed several terror operatives in the operation, said the military, and raided a Hamas command and control complex.
The IDF has carried out operations in Tel Sultan in the past — the neighborhood houses a number of key complexes belonging to Hamas and has a network of tunnels in which hostages have been held. While the military had been operating in the area up until recently, troops withdrew from the neighborhood during a recent truce.
In mid-January, Israel and Hamas agreed to a hostage-ceasefire deal that officially lasted 42 days and saw the terror group release 30 living hostages and the bodies of eight slain captives, while Israel released almost 2,000 terrorists and other prisoners, before the expiration of the deal’s first phase.
Netanyahu ordered the resumption of fighting in Gaza overnight Monday-Tuesday, saying talks moving forward would be held under fire after Hamas rejected proposals to extend phase one of the ceasefire. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said at least 400 people, more than half of them women and children, were killed on Tuesday. That figure has not been verified and does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Hamas has insisted on sticking to the terms of the deal agreed to by Netanyahu in January, which required the sides to begin holding talks on phase two in early February. Israel has largely refused to do so.
Phase two envisions the release of all remaining living hostages in exchange for more Palestinian prisoner releases, a permanent end to the war, and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. While Netanyahu signed on to a framework that included these stipulations, he has also insisted that Israel will not leave Gaza until Hamas’s military and governing capabilities have been dismantled.
While Israel says its military campaign is necessary to pressure Hamas into releasing more hostages, the families of many of those held captive have called for a renewed ceasefire.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 59 hostages, including 58 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Lazar Berman contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.