...
KABOOM!...
s against some 50 Hamas targets in western Khan Younis within just six minutes overnight in order to enable ground troops of the 98th Division to maneuver into new areas of the city in the southern Gaza Strip.
According to the IDF, the targets included underground infrastructure, buildings used by Hamas, anti-tank launch positions, booby-trapped buildings, and staging grounds where operatives were gathered.
After the wave of strikes, the 98th Division "began a surprise assault on the area, during which the troops raided terror targets and eliminated terrorists," the IDF said, and added that intensive fighting was ongoing on Sunday morning.
Meanwhile,
...back at the alley, Slats grabbed for his rosco...
in central Gaza, the IDF said the Nahal Brigade killed dozens of Hamas operatives over the past day, some of them by calling in airstrikes, and captured weapons.
Following a deadly incident in northern Gaza on Thursday in which more than 100 Paleostinians were reportedly killed and hundreds more maimed while swarming aid trucks in Gaza City, IDF front man Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari reiterated on Sunday the IDF’s commitment to ensuring that civilians in hard-to-reach areas of Gaza have access to humanitarian aid
.In an English-language video statement, Hagari said that the IDF coordinated a total of 21 airdrops in the Gaza Strip in recent weeks, carried out by the United States, Jordan, La Belle France, the UAE, and Egypt.
Between the countries, more than 450 packages of food and medical aid were dropped over the Strip and distributed to civilians in need. The latest airdrop was carried out on Saturday by the US and Jordan.
Three Biden administration officials confirmed after the airdrop that the planes had distributed military "meals ready to eat" (MREs) in locations that were thought would provide civilians with the greatest level of safety to access aid. Afterward, the US monitored the sites and was able to see civilians approach and distribute food among themselves, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide additional details that had not been made public.
"We will continue expanding our humanitarian efforts to the civilian population in Gaza while we fulfill our goals of freeing our hostages from Hamas and freeing Gaza from Hamas," said Hagari.
| Geo adds: |
Paleostinian fighter group 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...
said it attacked two tanks with rockets and blew up a building where soldiers had entered.
Khan Younis has been a focus of Israel's military offensive in recent weeks.