IDF strikes 300 Hamas targets in Gaza, while Israeli forces engage terrorists in 'fierce, close-quarters battles'

Israel Defense Forces continued its ground operations inside the Gaza Strip for the 25th day since the beginning of Operation Iron Swords, the war against the Hamas terror organization.

Israeli forces continue to stream nto Gaza, Israeli media reported, while the IDF said that combat forces struck 300 targets in the last 24 hours.

The IDF confirmed there were 150 such strikes on Monday.

Ground and air forces cooperated to destroy hundreds of anti-tank missile and rocket launch posts, as well as military compounds inside underground tunnels.

“Over the course of integrated and coordinated air and ground strikes, terrorists and hundreds of targets of the murderous Hamas terrorist organization were and continue to be struck,” IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Daniel Hagari said in his daily briefing on Tuesday.

He also noted that Israeli forces were engaging Hamas terrorists in "fierce, close-quarters battles" in Gaza.

Numerous terrorists were killed in engagements on Monday, as IDF soldiers directed airstrikes against terrorists firing anti-tank missiles and machine gun fire toward them.

In addition, the IDF and the Shin Bet killed the commander of Hamas’ Beit Lahia battalion.

“IDF fighter jets struck the Commander of the Beit Lahia Battalion of Hamas’s Northern Brigade, Nassim Abu Ajina, who directed the massacre on October 7 in Kibbutz Erez and Moshav Netiv HaAsara,” the IDF stated.

Abu Ajina was also involved in Hamas’ “aerial array” and the development of the drone and paragliding capabilities of the Hamas terror group.

“His elimination significantly harms the efforts of the Hamas terrorist organization to disrupt the IDF’s ground activities,” the IDF said.

Hamas also said it was engaged in “heavy fighting… with the invading occupation force” in the northern Gaza Strip, while claiming to have inflicted heavy losses on Israeli troops.

According to satellite pictures published by The New York Times on Tuesday, Israeli units advanced as far south into the Gaza Strip as al-Bahr Boulevard, a large street that runs across the Strip from the beach toward Jabalia refugee camp just north of Gaza City.

“Satellite imagery taken Monday morning shows the substantial scale of one of Israel’s main advances into northern Gaza, where hundreds of armored vehicles have pushed miles past the border into urban areas on the outskirts of Gaza City,” the report said.

On Monday, a video posted to Palestinian social media showed IDF tanks south of Gaza City on Salah al-Din road, a central north-to-south artery for the Strip.

The Israeli military on Monday evening announced the operation’s biggest success so far, as IDF soldier Ori Megidish, who was being held hostage by Haas in Gaza, was rescued and freed from captivity during a commando operation inside Gaza.