File image.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have stepped up strikes on the Gaza Strip from air, land and sea, hitting targets of the Hamas Movement and other Palestinian armed factions.
In a statement released on October 11, the IDF said that it had struck a number of Hamas naval targets including the Khan Younis and Gaza City docks which were used to “to carry out terror attacks on the Israeli coastline”. The two docks were hit by artillery fire from missile boats, combat helicopters and ground artillery, according to the military.
“In addition, Israeli Navy forces killed a Hamas diver who attempted to infiltrate into Israel from the Gaza shores earlier today,” the IDF adds.
In a later statement, the IDF announced that it had hit more than 80 targets of Hamas in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza. Dozens of fighter jets carried out the strikes against the targets, which include two bank branches, an underground tunnel, several war rooms, and other military installations, the military said.
The IDF revealed in another statement that it had targeted Hamas’s “aerial detection capabilities” in Gaza. According to the military, the faction operated a network of cameras, hidden inside solar water heaters across the Strip, in order to track and monitor Israeli aircraft.
“Yesterday, within a few minutes during a focused sortie, the IAF struck all of the sites of the network and demolished Hamas’s ability to form an accurate picture of the skies and their efforts to target IDF aircraft,” the military said.
In a separate statement, the IDF announced that on October 11, for the first time since 2006, it used an M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System to target a Hamas site in Gaza.
The military published footage showing the 334th Artillery Battalion of the 282nd Regiment launching a long-range Romah missile at a Hamas military site in Gaza.
The heavy strikes on Gaza are a part of Israel’s initial response to the large-scale attack launched by Hamas and other factions from the strip on October 7. More than 1,200 Israelis, including dozens of troops and policemen, were killed in the attack.
According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, at least 950 Palestinians have been killed and another 5,000 have been wounded in Israeli retaliatory strikes on the strip since the outbreak of the war. The numbers include hundreds of women and children.
In addition, the United States said that more than 260,000 Palestinians in Gaza were displaced as a result of IDF heavy strikes on the strip.
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