Israel Presses Attacks on Hamas in Rafah, Jabalya and Central Gaza

Jerusalem, 28 May, 2024 (TPS) -- The Israeli military pressed its attacks on Hamas across the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday.

In the Rafah area, combat teams operated throughout the night, fighting Hamas squads and locating underground tunnel shafts and weapons sites in a strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border known as the Philadelphi corridor.

In the northern Gaza area of Jabalya, troops also located weapons and destroyed underground tunnel shafts, observation posts, a military depot, and a building used by Hamas as a command center. The Israeli Air Force also eliminated a Hamas squad that launched missiles at soldiers.

In central Gaza, Israeli forces expanded their activities against Hamas’s efforts to regroup. An Israeli fighter jet struck a building where terrorists were spotted. Soldiers also seized a nearby weapons warehouse.

Meanwhile, the IDF said it is investigating Sunday’s night airstrike on a Hamas compound in Rafah that sparked a fire at a nearby camp for displaced Palestinians. The number of Palestinians killed has not been independently verified. Unconfirmed reports suggest the fire was started when shrapnel hit a fuel tank. The airstrike killed two senior Hamas commanders responsible for coordinating terror attacks in Judea and Samaria.

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 125 remaining hostages, 39 are believed dead.