From the Liveblog of
Monday, February 19, 2024
Israel has killed around 12,000 Hamas operatives in Gaza so far, says IDF
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
The IDF estimates it has killed some 12,000 Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war.
Hamas, with some 30,000 fighters, is also believed to have thousands of operatives who are seriously wounded and unable to fight.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry has said more than 29,000 people in the Strip have been killed in the fighting so far, an unverified figure that does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
The numbers do not include around 1,000 gunmen killed inside Israel on October 7.
Earlier, a Hamas official based in Qatar told Reuters that the terror group estimated it has lost 6,000 fighters, a rare acknowledgment from the terror group that it has suffered significant losses and apparently the first time that it has differentiated between combatants and civilians in a death toll from the war.
