IDF says it killed over 100 Hamas gunmen in 2-week operation in Gaza City’s Zeitoun

Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent

Troops of the 401st Armored Brigade operate in Gaza City's Zeitoun, in a handout image published by the IDF on March 3, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)
Troops of the 401st Armored Brigade operate in Gaza City's Zeitoun, in a handout image published by the IDF on March 3, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

The IDF says it has wrapped up a two-week-long raid in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood, during which troops of the 401st Armored Brigade and additional forces of the 162nd Division destroyed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad sites and killed more than 100 operatives.

Some 35 sites were located and destroyed during the operation, including weapon depots and manufacturing sites, tunnel infrastructure, rocket launching sites with hundreds of launchers, and a site belonging to the commander of the Gaza City Brigade, Izz ad-Din Haddad, according to the IDF.

Using drones, the IDF says the 401st Brigade identified and captured dozens of Hamas operatives, who, following interrogations, provided intelligence information. Some of the Hamas gunmen were hiding among the civilian population in Zeitoun, according to the IDF.

The brigade killed at least 113 Hamas operatives in Zeitoun over the past two weeks, the IDF says, those that troops were able to identify with the naked eye or using drones.

The Hamas gunmen are operating in Zeitoun without a “military framework,” and in relatively small cells, according to the IDF, after the military says it dismantled the terror group’s battalions in the area in the early stages of the ground offensive.

Troops came under gunfire, RPG fire and explosive devices amid the operations, with at least four soldiers being killed and several more wounded. According to the IDF, most of the attacks on troops in Zeitoun occurred during the day, rather than at night.

In one incident, the IDF says a Hamas cell fired anti-tank missiles from a close range at troops. An Israeli Air Force drone spotted and struck the cell, killing several of the operatives, while others were spotted fleeing in an ambulance, the IDF says.

In another incident, the brigade called in an airstrike against a building from which a Hamas sniper was shooting at troops.

The raid in Zeitoun was the 401st Brigade’s fourth operation in Gaza, previously battling Hamas in Beit Lahiya, then in the Daraj and Tuffah neighborhoods of Gaza City, before a raid in the Rimal and Shati neighborhoods. The IDF will soon decide where to send the brigade for its next mission.

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