Click to see full-size image. (The Israeli Defense Forces)
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced on December 3 that the Air Force carried out overnight strikes, hitting tunnels, command centers, munitions warehouses and other sites of the Hamas Movement in the Gaza Strip.
In addition, a group of Hamas fighters were “eliminated” by a drone, directed by troops of the 7th Armored Brigade, according to the IDF.
The IDF also said that the Navy shelled targets connected to Hamas, including military infrastructure, vessels associated with the terror group’s naval forces and weapons depots.
Separately, the IDF admitted that two more soldiers were killed in Gaza, the first to be announced since the ceasefire in the Strip came to an end.
A soldier from the 7th Armored Brigade’s 82nd Battalion was killed during clashes in central Gaza a day earlier. Another from the Nahal Brigade’s 932nd Battalion succumbed to wounds he sustained on November 14. Their death brought the toll of slain troops in the IDF’s ground operation in Gaza to 72.
The toll could rise again in the coming hours. Hamas’ military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, announced in the morning that its fighters had targeted a gathering of more than 60 Israeli troops near the town of Juhor al-Dik in central Gaza with three explosive devices, killing most of them.
Despite taking some losses, the IDF is still preparing to develop its ground operations in Gaza. The IDF’s Arabic-language Spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Avichay Adraee, said on X that Palestinians in some parts of the city of Khan Younis in the Strip’s south should move to specified safe areas in nearby al-Shaboura Camp, Tal al-Sultan and al-Fakhari.
Talks on the renewal of the ceasefire in Gaza faced a serious setback a day earlier with Israel withdrawing its negotiators from Qatar and Hamas officials insisting that none of the remaining hostages in the Strip would be released before the end of the war.
