The Israeli army stated on Thursday that it had apprehended a whole lot of individuals suspected of terrorism, together with needed Hamas operatives, throughout the Gaza Strip in a single day, and that many had surrendered and been transferred to Israel for additional questioning.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief army spokesman, stated in a televised briefing that most of the suspects beneath interrogation by the army and the Shin Bet home safety company had turned themselves over to the Israeli forces.
“The intelligence we gather from the questioning aids us in the continued fight,” he stated.
The bulletins of the surrenders and arrests got here quickly after pictures and movies surfaced on social media showing to point out rows of males stripped to their underwear, sitting or kneeling on the bottom, with some sure and blindfolded.
The New York Times has not verified the photographs or the video. Admiral Hagari didn’t reply straight when requested in regards to the pictures, however reiterated the Israeli army’s aim of discovering and capturing Hamas operatives.
“They hide under the ground and come out and we battle them,” Admiral Hagari stated. Some, he added, “come out of tunnel shafts and others out of houses. We question and investigate who among them is connected to Hamas and who is not. We detain all of them and interrogate them.”
Another army spokesman, Maj. Nir Dinar, stated the army had not launched the photographs and didn’t know when, or if, Israeli troopers had taken them.
The Israeli army stated in a press release that troops had arrested a whole lot of individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism over the previous day, throughout fight in Shejaiya and Jabaliya, Hamas strongholds in the northern Gaza Strip, and Khan Younis, one other Hamas bastion in the south of the Palestinian enclave.
In addition, the army stated, a military intelligence unit and the Shin Bet labored collectively on Thursday to arrest one other 150 terrorism suspects, together with Hamas operatives, from the world of the Jabaliya refugee camp, and that they have been being questioned in Gaza. The army had beforehand acknowledged that its human intelligence unit was working an interrogation facility inside Gaza.
Since starting its floor invasion of Gaza in late October, Israel has arrested a whole lot of Palestinians, amongst them the director of Al-Shifa Hospital, the strip’s largest medical facility. Israel has contended that Hamas was utilizing the hospital as a command-and-control heart. The army has uncovered a stretch of tunnel operating beneath the hospital compound.
Admiral Hagari added that Israeli forces have been advancing on Thursday and intensifying the battle towards Hamas’s strongholds in northern and southern Gaza, killing senior commanders hiding in underground tunnels and destroying Hamas infrastructure.
The army stated on Thursday that it had killed a senior Hamas operative in an airstrike just a few days in the past that hit Hamas’s central intelligence command heart. The operative, it stated, is Abdel Aziz Rantisi, from Hamas’ army intelligence unit, who the army stated had been accountable for discipline intelligence in the strip and helped to plan the Oct. 7 assault in southern Israel.
Over the previous few days, the army stated, its forces have been preventing in close-quarter fight, killing “dozens” of armed operatives, and have situated and destroyed weapons and underground infrastructure, “predominantly located inside and in the vicinity of civilian buildings,” in addition to rocket launchers and tunnel shafts, together with one inside a college in Shejaiya.
It was not potential to independently confirm Israel’s account of the preventing.
Also on Thursday, an anti-tank missile that was fired into northern Israel from Lebanese territory killed an Israeli civilian. Israel stated it had responded to that strike and extra launches from Lebanon with tank and artillery fireplace, and airstrikes towards targets together with what the army described as a command-and-control heart of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite group.
