Photo by
Elad Zagman/TPS-IL on 15 January, 2025
Israel Strikes 50 Gaza Terror Targets Ahead of Widely Expected Ceasefire
Jerusalem, 15 January, 2025 (TPS-IL) -- Israeli forces struck dozens of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza overnight ahead of a widely anticipated ceasefire agreement, the Israel Defense Forces said on Wednesday.
Targets included “a key terrorist who operated in a command and control complex in an area that previously served as a school in the Daraj Tuffah area” of northern Gaza, the army said.
Fifty sites belonging to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were struck in Khan Yunis and Deir el-Balah in the past 24 hours. Targets included terror cells, weapons depots, underground infrastructure, anti-tank positions and other military structures.
The army said precision weapons, aerial surveillance and other intelligence measures were used to mitigate harm to civilians.
“The Hamas terrorist organization systematically violates international law, while cruelly exploiting civilian institutions and the population as human shields for terrorist operations,” the army said.
Under the terms of the emerging ceasefire, it is expected that the first 33 hostages to be released will be humanitarian cases — women, children, elderly and the sick. Palestinians from northern Gaza who fled to southern areas of the Strip will be allowed to return to their homes. Israeli forces will not withdraw from the Strip until all the hostages are freed.
Israeli hospitals are on placed on standby to receive returning captives.
Opponents of the agreement are against any deal that does not bring home all the hostages at once.
At least 1,200 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7. Of the 95 remaining hostages, more than 30 have been declared dead. Hamas has also been holding captive two Israeli civilians since 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two soldiers killed in 2014.
