The Islamist terrorist organization Hamas is gradually losing control over the northern part of the Gaza Strip, MTI quotes the Israeli military spokesman as saying on Sunday.
In the weekend battle for the Badr fortress in the northern part of the zone, the Israeli troops killed about one hundred and fifty Palestinian militants, including senior leaders of the terrorist organization. The fortress, located near the refugee camp, next to residential buildings, was taken by a joint attack by the air force, the tank division and the artillery units. In the fighting, they found and destroyed a munitions workshop, missile launch stations and an underground tunnel network.
Since Friday, six Israeli soldiers have lost their lives, five of them in a mined mosque while disarming the weapons placed there. The 38-year-old was among them Matan Meir he is also a mobilized reserve soldier and the production manager of the Fauda film series.
A Hamas squad operating in the Blue Beach hotel in the northern part of the zone was liquidated. About thirty terrorists barricaded themselves in the building and fired anti-tank rockets at the Israeli forces. Hotel rooms were used as shelters and to plan attacks above and below ground. The army extended the fighting to the Sati refugee camp next to Sifa Hospital, on the northern edge of Gaza City. In the battles there, more than ten Palestinian militants lost their lives, while hundreds of civilians fled the camp.
The navy blew up a warehouse of Hamas naval equipment in the northern part of the zone. According to Palestinian press reports, the political leader of Hamas living in Qatar was killed in one of the Israeli attacks. To Ismail Hani his grandson. Israeli forces killed Ahmed Siam, the commander of the Hamas squadron, who prevented about a thousand Gazans seeking refuge near the Rantiszi hospital in northern Gaza from fleeing south to the safe humanitarian zone. Siam hid in a school, where he was killed along with the militants under his command.
According to Israeli intelligence, the Hamas General Staff directs its fighters from bunkers under the Sifa hospital. Daniel Hagarithe IDF spokesman denied attacking the hospital, which had previously been asked to be evacuated, on Saturday evening.
We spoke to the staff of the Sifa hospital and told them clearly that the Israeli army would not attack the hospital. We will continue to allow patients and medical staff, as well as residents of the northern part of the Gaza Strip, to travel safely to the south
Hagari said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it had lost contact with several staff at the Sifa hospital in the northern part of the zone and expressed fears for the safety of those trapped there, while calling for immediate intervention for a ceasefire. «We are very concerned about the safety of health workers and the hundreds of sick and wounded, including hospitalized babies and displaced people,» they said. According to the latest reports received by the health organization, tanks surrounded the hospital.
Israel’s military spokesman said at a briefing on Saturday evening that Hamas was committing a war crime by using the hospitals. He denied that Israel would attack the facility, but announced that there were battles with terrorists near the hospital. According to military reports, in the past two days, infantry, engineer and armored forces have begun to surround the hospital in order to isolate it in stages from the militants heading there.
They are slowly and thoroughly peeling away the protective layers of the hospital, which for Hamas is actually a military command, and only then a hospital
– according to the report of the Walla news portal. «Shifa Hospital is the heart of terrorism,» a senior officer of the Southern Command told Walla. (MTI)
