Day 38: IDF tightens screws on Gaza encirclement, deepens raids into heart of Gaza City

The intense fighting inside the Gaza Strip continued unabated on Day 38 of Operation Iron Swords.

The Israeli army stated that it has so far destroyed 4,300 targets during the ground invasion with the combined attacks by the Israeli Air Force and ground troops, including hundreds of anti-tank missile launch positions, about 300 tunnel shafts, over 100 booby-trapped buildings and dozens of Hamas military infrastructure targets.

Israeli soldiers continue to systematically search and sweep the secured areas of the northern Gaza Strip while deepening their raids into the heart of Gaza City and finding many weapons and explosives.

A combat team of the 401st Brigade raided the outskirts of the Al-Shati refugee camp and found weapons, combat equipment and operational plans. Their raids targeted terrorist infrastructures located in central governmental institutions in the midst of the civilian population, including schools, universities, mosques and activist homes.

Among the locations with weapons storage were Al-Quds University and Gaza's main mosque, Abu Bakr, where Israeli forces uncovered a large area for sabotage operations, with incendiary materials and explosives.

Fighters of the 551st Brigade raided the home of a senior member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organization and found several weapons in the children’s room of his house.

In another activity, the fighters of the brigade located a tunnel shaft, intelligence materials of the terror organizations and weapons in a civilian space in the Beit Hanoun area.

The 551st Brigade is an elite reserve unit operating in northern Gaza, which recently lost four soldiers of its 697th Battalion. At the time, the troops were conducting scans of an area with several underground tunnel shafts when a powerful explosion of a concealed booby trap in one of the shafts killed four soldiers and seriously injured six others.

Meanwhile, forces of the 36th Division and the Israeli Navy’s commando unit ‘Shayetet 13’ were able to secure the area of Gaza’s seaport, deepening the encirclement of Gaza City from the west.

They found and destroyed long-range rocket launchers, anti-tank launch positions, tunnel shafts and other terrorist infrastructure.

In light of these operations, IDF spokesman Brig.-Gen. Daniel Hagari lauded the unprecedented cooperation between air and ground forces, which is widely seen as an important factor in the speed of Israeli operations, as well as the reason for the relatively low number of casualties among Israeli soldiers.

“We also continue to look for the Hamas leadership and attack it. They do it around the clock all the time – the IDF, the Air Force, the IDF Intelligence Corps, the Southern Command and the Shin Bet. We will reach everyone,” Hagari said.

He added that the IDF again opened dedicated routes from hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip to the south to facilitate the evacuation of the refugees and injured people.

“The residents of the northern Gaza Strip continue to respond to the calls of the IDF and move south, even though Hamas is doing everything for them to stay,” Hagari said, while noting that Hamas is preventing the transfer of fuel to Shifa Hospital.