...
KABOOM!...
; rockets target south for first time in nearly 48 hours
The Israel Defense Forces gave out information Saturday on its ongoing war against Hamas
...a regional Iranian catspaw,...in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
Strip, detailing shootouts and strikes on terror operatives as well as arrests.
Hamas, too, reported heavy shelling in several cities in the territory, hours after world powers in a UN Security Council vote demanded more aid be allowed into the Paleostinian territory.
During ground operations in the southern part of Gaza City, the IDF said troops of the Yiftah Reserve Brigade carried out an ambush against Hamas, leading to dozens of terror operatives being killed.
The IDF said the troops opened fire in a deceptive manner to cause dozens of button men to flee into a building used as a command center. The building was then struck by a fighter jet.
Also in the southern Gaza City area, the IDF said Yiftah Brigade snipers killed several Hamas button men who were preparing to attack troops. Other buildings identified by the brigade as being used by Hamas in the area were struck by aircraft, the IDF added.
In an unspecified area of Gaza City, the IDF said troops of the 14th Reserve Armored Brigade identified a group of Hamas button men and called in an airstrike. In the Shati camp area of Gaza City, it said the 14th Brigade identified a further three Hamas button men who had shot up them. The brigade called in an airstrike to kill the three operatives.
The incidents in Gaza City indicate that while the IDF has operational control over the area, it is still battling smaller Hamas cells.
Meanwhile,
...back at the the conspirators' cleverly concealed hideout Montefiore's foot was still stuck and the hound had completely soaked his uniform with slobber...
in central Gaza, the army said the 179th Reserve Armored Brigade found a cache of weapons in a children’s daycare center, including mortars, RPGs and other explosives.
Clouds of gray and black smoke rose over the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis after strikes in the morning.
The Hamas-controlled health ministry reported that 18 people had been killed in a strike on a house in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, and said other targets were hit up and down the coastal Strip.
Also Saturday, the IDF and Shin Bet said more than 200 Hamas and Paleostinian Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
terror operatives had been captured in the Gaza Strip over the past week, and taken for questioning.
The joint statement said hundreds of suspects were detained in the Strip over the past week, of whom more than 200 were brought to Israel to be interrogated by the Shin Bet and Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504.
It said some of the captured Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives were hiding within the civilian population before surrendering to troops.
So far since the beginning of the ground offensive, more than 700 terror operatives have been captured and brought to Israel, the IDF said.
Early Saturday afternoon, rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip at southern Israel after a lull of nearly 48 hours.
The attack set off sirens in the largely evacuated border community of Kfar Aza. There were no reports of injuries or damage. Locals reported seeing four interceptor missiles downing the incoming projectiles.
The rate of rocket fire from Gaza has slowed significantly in recent weeks, as the IDF expands its ground offensive against Hamas.
Later Saturday, the IDF announced the deaths of five soldiers killed during fighting in the Gaza Strip over the weekend, bringing the toll of slain troops in the ground offensive against Hamas to 144.
They were named as Staff Sgt. Nir Rafael Kananian, 20, of the Givati Brigade’s reconnaissance unit, from Beit Keshet; Staff Sgt. Birhanu Kassie, 20, of the Givati Brigade’s reconnaissance unit, from Beit Shemesh; Master Sgt. (res.) Shay Termin, 26, of the 55th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade’s 6623rd Battalion, from Rosh Pina; Warrant Officer (res.) Alexander Shpits, 41, of the 55th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade’s 6623rd Battalion, from Karmiel and Cpt. Oshri Moshe Butzhak, 22, a team commander in the Nahal Brigade’s reconnaissance unit, from Haifa.
Kananian, Kassie, Termin, and Shpits were killed on Friday in southern Gaza, while Butzhak was killed Saturday in the Strip’s north.
Another five soldiers of the Givati Brigade’s reconnaissance unit were seriously maimed in the battle in which Kananian and Kassie were killed, the IDF added