IDF widens ground operation in northern Gaza, kills top Hamas official in Lebanon

The Israel Defense Forces said Friday that it had expanded its ground operations in the northern Gaza Strip, with troops pushing into Gaza City’s eastern Shejaiya neighborhood.

According to the military, the operations are aimed at expanding Israel’s buffer zone along the Gaza border.

The IDF said that so far, troops have killed several terror operatives and destroyed infrastructure, including a Hamas command center.

The military said it is enabling civilians to evacuate the area “for their safety.” It had issued evacuation warnings for Shejaiya on Thursday.

Israel had issued sweeping evacuation orders for parts of northern Gaza ahead of ground operations. The UN humanitarian office said around 280,000 Palestinians have been displaced since the ceasefire with Hamas fell apart last month.

Throughout the war, the IDF has issued evacuation orders for various areas, advising residents to head for safe zones to avoid being caught up in the fighting. Israel accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields by embedding its fighters among the population.

In an update later on Friday, the military said that a deputy commander of a Hamas Nukhba force company was killed in a recent drone strike in the northern Gaza Strip.

The strike was directed by troops of the 401st Armored Brigade.

The brigade killed several more operatives and destroyed rocket launchers and other Hamas infrastructure during their operations in northern Gaza, the IDF said.

Gaza’s civil defense agency said Friday that military operations had killed at least 30 people in the Palestinian territory since dawn, adding that the toll was “not final.” The figures cannot be verified.

A single Israeli strike on Khan Yunis killed at least 25 people, a medical source at the southern city’s Nasser Hospital told AFP.

“The situation is very dangerous, and there is death coming at us from every direction,” Elena Halas told AFP via text message, adding that she and her family were trapped in her sister’s house in Shejaiya.

A number of the Palestinians leaving the targeted areas in northern Gaza Thursday did so on foot, with some carrying their belongings on their backs and others using donkey carts.

“My wife and I have been walking for three hours covering only one kilometer,” said Mohammad Ermana, 72. The couple, clasping hands, each walked with a cane. “I’m searching for shelters every hour now, not every day,” he said.

Israel restarted intense bombing of Gaza on March 18 and then launched a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire in the war with Hamas.

The war erupted on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists rampaged through southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages to Gaza.

Hamas-controlled health officials said on Thursday that 1,163 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since the large-scale strikes resumed, bringing the overall death toll since the war began to 50,523. The toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between fighters and civilians. Israel says it killed at least 20,000 combatants and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced earlier in the week that troops would carve out a new security corridor that will seemingly cut off Rafah as it seeks to pile pressure on Hamas, which continues to hold 59 Israeli hostages.

IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said Thursday that the military has begun a “new stage” in the operation designed to return the hostages and destroy “Hamas’s military and governing capabilities.”

Meanwhile, a senior Hamas commander was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the coastal Lebanese city of Sidon overnight, the military announced.

Hassan Farhat had headed Hamas’s forces in the western sector of Lebanon, according to the IDF. The Israeli airstrike had hit an apartment building in Sidon.

During the war, the military said, Farhat advanced numerous attacks on Israeli civilians and IDF troops, and was responsible for a rocket attack on the Northern Command base in Safed on February 14, 2024, killing Staff Sgt. Omer Sarah Benjo and wounding other troops.

“The terrorist was involved in advancing terror attacks against the State of Israel in recent months, and his activities constituted a threat to the State of Israel and its citizens,” the IDF said.

Footage from the scene of the strike showed one floor of the apartment block in flames, with smoke pouring out of it. The other floors appear to be relatively unscathed.

Reports of a precision-airstrike earlier by the Israeli Air Force, on an apartment building inside the city of Sidon in southern Lebanon. Reports that the target eliminated in Sidon was a senior Hamas official. It is also reported that his family was eliminated along with him. pic.twitter.com/YQMheOFYiC

— Eretz Israel (@EretzIsrael) April 4, 2025

Hamas has a significant presence in Lebanon and is allied with the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group. Both are backed by Iran.

In February, an IDF strike killed another senior Hamas commander in Sidon. Israel accused him of plotting and advancing terror attacks from Lebanon against Israeli civilians, with Iranian funding and guidance.

Under the November ceasefire with Lebanon, which ended over a year of Hezbollah-instigated fighting, the terror group was obligated to pull its forces north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south, while the Lebanese army deployed to control the area.

Israel, meanwhile, was obligated to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon within 60 days. The withdrawal deadline was pushed off, with Lebanese and US approval, to February 18. Israel eventually withdrew from all of Lebanon except for five strategic posts along the border.

Israel and Hezbollah have repeatedly accused each other of violating the agreement, which gives Israel the right to act against imminent threats by terror groups.