IDF destroys weapons storage facility in south Lebanon, Shin Bet reveals 2024 Gaza counterterror op

IDF troops in the 769th Brigade, under the command of the 91st Division, located and destroyed a weapons storage facility in the Saluki area of southern Lebanon, the IDF reported Tuesday afternoon.

The Shin Bet released new footage on Tuesday of the separate rescues of Ori Megidish in October 2023  and Fernando Marman and Luis Har in February 2024 as part of a new report and data on the year after October 7.

In one recording, captured shortly after the rescue of Ori Megidish by the IDF and Shin Bet from Gaza on October 30. Megidish was kidnapped on October 7 from the Nahal Oz outpost by Hamas terrorists, where she served as an observer.

The Shin Bet has comprehensively interrogated over 650 Gazans this year while performing some preliminary evaluation of around 2,500 of them, the Israel Security Agency said Tuesday in its 2024 annual report.

This is the first time that the Shin Bet has quantified the full picture of how many Gazan detainees it has seen as valuable enough to carry out a full interrogation.

Out of the over 2,500 Gazans brought to the Shin Bet for evaluation, around 1,350 were arrested in operations in which the Shin Bet directly participated.

The IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) have killed Anas Muhammad Saadi Masri, the commander of the northern sector of the rocket unit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the IDF confirmed on Tuesday.

 “An Air Force aircraft, guided by intelligence from the Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman), the Shin Bet, and the Southern Command, struck and killed Masri earlier this month," the statement said.

Masri was described as “a significant figure responsible for executing numerous terror operations, managing and directing actions by the organization that targeted Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers.”

The statement added that since October 7, Masri had been actively commanding rocket fire from northern Gaza into Israeli border communities. He also oversaw several operatives involved in launching rockets into Israeli territory.

“Prior to the strike, extensive measures were taken to minimize civilian casualties, including the use of precision weaponry, accurate intelligence, and aerial surveillance,” the IDF emphasized.

 “We will continue to strike anyone who promotes or engages in terrorism against Israeli citizens and will work to achieve the objectives of the war," the IDF concluded.

The Iran-backed Houthi terror group in Yemen claimed on Tuesday morning that they "successfully hit" Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv and a power station in Jerusalem - despite the IAF intercepting the Houthi attack.

The terror group also claimed to have thwarted a US attack with an aerial launch. 

The Houthis made their claims after the IDF announced the IAF had intercepted a Houthi missile before it reached Israeli territory late on Monday night. Sirens were sounded so civilians could seek shelter from potential shrapnel resulting from the interception.

Hamas has transformed Gaza’s healthcare system into a military apparatus, John Spencer, a leading international expert on urban warfare, revealed in an exclusive interview with Maariv on Monday.

Spencer also explained why IDF operations in hospitals are legal and praised the unique tactics employed by the IDF to identify terrorists posing as patients.

"My research showed that from the first day of the Israel-Hamas War, Hamas left no hospital untouched for terrorist purposes, and this has only proliferated since," said Spencer, head of the Urban Warfare Department at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point. Spencer served for 25 years as an infantry soldier, including two deployments in Iraq.

Sergeant (Sgt.) Uriel Peretz, 23, from Beitar Illit, was killed in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, the IDF announced on Monday.

The IDF also announced that three soldiers were critically wounded and were evacuated to a hospital to receive medical treatment.

Sgt. Peretz and the wounded soldiers were in the IDF's Netzah Yehuda (97) Battalion in the Kfir Brigade.

Peretz's family has been notified of his death. His funeral will take place on Tuesday at 2 p.m., Maariv reported.

The IDF said on Monday it killed dozens of Hamas members in Jabalya – just one day after it said the terror group was nearly cleared out of northern Gaza.

It also announced that Sgt. Uriel Peretz, 23, from Betar Illit, was killed in fighting in Beit Hanun, adding that in the attack, three soldiers from the 97th Battalion in the Kfir Brigade were critically wounded.

According to the military, locating and killing the terrorists was made possible by a mix of ongoing intelligence collection, operations to trick the men into an ambush, and both tank fire and gunfire.

The IDF invaded Jabalya in October 2023, again this past May, and then again in October.

By December 2023, the IDF declared Jabalya under operational control and that Hamas’s battalions were broken down.

Sirens sounded across central Israel following a missile from Yemen, which was intercepted before it entered Israeli territory, the IDF announced Monday night.

The IDF said that alarms were triggered out of concerns about falling shrapnel or fragments from the interception.

The attack came after reports of US and UK strikes in Yemen. 

The Houthis claimed the incident on Telegram, showing videos of people running to shelters from Israeli social media channels.