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.
Is military intelligence incorrect?
After the May invasion, the IDF said it destroyed 12 km. of Hamas tunnels and killed between 300-500 terrorists, leaving the area relatively clear.
After several weeks of operations in Jabalya starting this October, the IDF again said most of the terrorists there were cleared.
That was true until Friday and Sunday when the IDF said it had killed dozens more terrorists and arrested over 200. The IDF again said Jabalya was essentially cleared.
Monday’s announcement, while a positive tactical sign of progress against Hamas, suggested that military intelligence is consistently wrong about how many Hamas fighters remain in a given area like Jabalya. Part of the reason for this could be the large number of Palestinian terrorists who fake being unarmed civilians most of the time.
Another could be that Hamas continues to successfully recruit adolescents and minors, who have very little to do with their time and are battered by over a year’s worth of strikes, along with an unprecedented number of those whose families and friends have been killed by the IDF.
The IDF also said it believes and hopes that the recent rocket fire from northern Gaza was Hamas rushing to clear out its last inventory of rockets from the area before the military bears down on them. However, to date, the IDF has not been able to fully stop rocket fire from Gaza.
After multiple small rounds of rockets were fired over the last week, Hamas fired a rocket from central Gaza into open fields near Kissufim on Monday.
This failure to clear out Hamas, even just out of one area of the northern half of northern Gaza could be one reason why military sources on Sunday were more forthright about admitting that – if ordered – the IDF would prolong keeping Jabalya cut-off from Gaza City.
Both areas are broadly part of northern Gaza, but Jabalya, along with Beit Hanun and Beit Lahiya, are part of the northernmost half, which has been progressively emptied out of people since early October.
In early October, the IDF evacuated tens of thousands of Palestinians to Gaza City and further south, while large numbers of Hamas terrorists were also killed.
Both due to global criticism and having exhausted the main Hamas areas to attack at the time, the IDF returned to smaller-scale operations against terrorist cells for much of the last two months.
This all comes amid a debate about whether Israel is implementing the “General’s Plan,” proposed by several senior former IDF officials, to empty all of northern Gaza of Palestinians – including civilians – and cut it off completely, as a pressure move against Hamas.
The Biden administration and European allies strongly opposed the plan. Israel has denied that it was adopted at all, but in practice, it seems to have been half-implemented in parts of northern Gaza, while the military allowed some Palestinians to remain in Gaza City.
Kamal Adwan Hospital operations
On Friday, Israeli security forces arrested over 240 terrorists in a targeted operation against Hamas’s latest attempt to reconstitute itself in northern Gaza, largely embedded within the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Jabalya.
The IDF arrested hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya on Sunday. Amnesty International expressed concern about what would happen to him and demanded he be released immediately and unconditionally.
The IDF took credit on Sunday for a commando raid on an underground Iranian missile production facility near the city of Maysaf in Syria in early September. The Jerusalem Post learned of this in late September, but could only confirm after KAN was permitted to publish the information.
That a raid took place – but without Israeli confirmation – was first reported by Axios on September 12. The Post received confirmation of it shortly after.
It appears that Israeli censor and secrecy rules regarding operations in Syria have become more flexible, given the massive increase in IDF operations in Syria since the fall of the Assad regime earlier this month. Information that security officials likely view any threat of retaliation from Syria is likely at a much lower risk level.
The raid targeted two significant sites, which were the Syrian defense industry’s Scientific Studies and Research Center and the underground missile production facility run by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Israel, which had tracked the facility for years, informed the US about the operation in advance. The IDF prepared its plans after it detected that Iran transferred components for a precision missile project into the facility. Israel then decided to address the “growing threat.”
The decision to carry out the strike was believed to be influenced by concerns over the war, along with the potential risk that the Iranian missile factory would begin mass-producing missiles. The weapons were reportedly intended to be used as a supply for Hezbollah.
The operation occurred approximately 200 km. from Israeli territory and was deemed urgent to prevent the facility from reaching full production capacity.
Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.