Israeli Soldiers Find Rockets Primed for Firing in Sensitive Gaza-Egypt Border Area

Jerusalem, 22 May, 2024 (TPS) -- Israeli soldiers discovered and destroyed several Hamas rocket launchers loaded and primed to fire in a sensitive area of the Gaza-Egypt border on Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces said.

The strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border where the launchers were found is known as the Philadelphi corridor, a buffer zone created to prevent weapons smuggling in 2006 after Israel disengaged from the Strip. But in 2007, Hamas violently seized control of Gaza from the PA.

The Egypt-Gaza border is politically sensitive, technically a demilitarized zone under the terms of the Camp David Accords signed in 1978.

Israel took control of the corridor and the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on May 7. Since then, Israeli tanks have been seen patrolling the border.

Earlier on Wednesday, an Israeli airstrike destroyed a Hamas weapons compound located inside a UNRWA school in the Nuseirat area of central Gaza.

Footage released by the army showed secondary explosions, which the IDF said were mortars and other explosives. Several terrorists were killed, including a member of Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force. The IDF said the strike was carried out using precise munitions to mitigate any harm to civilians in the area.

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 128 remaining hostages, some 40 are believed dead.