Israeli forces pressed ahead with their ground offensive in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday, surrounding Gaza City, clashing with Hamas and killing “scores” of terrorists, the army said, while Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said troops were advancing according to the plan.”
Capturing the city, the largest city in Gaza and a stronghold of Gaza’s Hamas rulers, will be a daunting task for the Israeli military, whose efforts to drive out the terror group will force soldiers to make their way through the crowded urban maze Bombs, booby traps and undermining to fight. Through a huge network of tunnels, the terrorist group’s agents will ambush their troops.
On Friday evening, the IDF confirmed that it had carried out an airstrike in northern Gaza on an ambulance allegedly used by a Hamas cell near a combat zone.
Hospital directors at three hospitals said strikes broke out as staff tried to evacuate wounded people to the south. Footage showed the aftermath outside Gaza’s largest hospital, Shifa, where more than a dozen bloodied bodies of men, women and small children lay scattered next to damaged cars and ambulances.
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“Several Hamas terrorists were killed in the attack,” the IDF said, adding that it would release more information soon. It said “more detailed information” about the attack had already been shared with allies.
“We have information that shows Hamas’ modus operandi is to transport terrorists and weapons in ambulances,” the IDF said. “We emphasize that this area is a combat zone. Civilians in the region are repeatedly urged to evacuate south for their own safety.”
This crop from AFPTV video footage shows victims lying near an ambulance damaged in a reported Israeli attack outside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on November 3, 2023. (AFPTV STRINGER / various sources / AFP)
The military stated that Hamas’s main base of operations is within and beneath Shifa Hospital and that it also uses other hospitals as cover.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “deeply shocked” by the deadly Israeli attack on an ambulance near the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital on Friday. “We reiterate: patients, health workers, facilities and ambulances must be protected at all times. Always,” the WHO chief wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
An estimated 800,000 Palestinians have fled south from Gaza City and other northern areas following repeated Israeli calls for evacuation, but hundreds of thousands remain in the north, including many who left the country and later returned as Israel also carries out some airstrikes in the south.
On Friday afternoon, the IDF announced that it had killed numerous terrorists within a few hours. It said in one incident, ground troops identified a cell emerging from a tunnel and directed an aircraft to attack it.
In another operation, numerous gunmen emerged from a tunnel in a building and opened fire on Israeli forces, the IDF said. The troops returned fire, killing several of them, it said.
A soldier was killed and another seriously injured in a clash with armed Hamas militants in Gaza on Friday, the IDF said.
IDF troops operate in the Gaza Strip, in an image released by the military on November 3, 2023. (Israeli Defense Forces)
The soldier killed was named as Sgt. First Class (res.) Yedidya Eliyahu, 25, of the 8170th Combat Engineering Corps Battalion, from Karnei Shomron.
His death brings the number of soldiers killed since the ground offensive began last week to 25 and to 341 since October 7.
During a meeting with military leaders at the IDF Southern Command headquarters in Beersheba, Gallant said Israeli troops operating in the Gaza Strip were advancing “according to plan” and attacks on Hamas would only increase.
“The systematic attack on Hamas terrorists [expands] “The successes will continue and increase,” he added.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (center) is seen with IDF Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman (right) and other officers at the Southern Command headquarters in Beersheba on Nov. 3, 2023. (Ariel Hermoni/Ministry of Defense)
Backed by punitive air and naval support, Israeli soldiers and tank columns continued their push into Gaza City after several days of fighting on the city’s outskirts, including heavy airstrikes on parts of Jabaliya, a Hamas stronghold full of high-rise apartment buildings.
The IDF said troops from the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit worked to destroy Hamas tunnels discovered during ground operations in the northern Gaza Strip.
“The troops uncovered tunnel shafts, rigged them with explosives and neutralized the tunnels,” the IDF said.
Israeli soldiers inspect a tunnel entrance in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, in a picture released by the military on November 3, 2023. (Israeli Defense Forces)
IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in an evening news conference that the military was continuing its efforts to kill Hamas field commanders.
He said the IDF had killed 10 Hamas brigade and battalion commanders – and those with equivalent ranks – in airstrikes since the start of the war. “They are also the ones who planned the terrible massacre of October 7th.”
He said the military remained focused on the Gaza Strip despite tensions in the north due to repeated attacks by Hezbollah. “The goal is to dismantle Hamas and return the hostages,” he added.
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari makes a statement to the media in Tel Aviv on October 16, 2023. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
The army also announced Friday that it had received extensive intelligence from a Hamas stronghold in Jabaliya that was captured by troops from the Givati Infantry Brigade on Tuesday.
According to the IDF, the large military compound served Hamas’ elite Nukhba forces and the terrorist group Jabaliya’s intelligence unit. The military said around 50 Hamas terrorists were killed in the attack on the fortress. Two Israeli soldiers were also killed in the fighting.
The IDF said it seized battle plans, maps, command and control cards, communications equipment and the personal information of commanders and operatives of the Hamas terror group.
The materials were researched by the 162nd Division’s intelligence unit and other officials and would “be used by the IDF in future battles,” the military said.
The commander of the Givati Brigade’s reconnaissance unit, Lt. Col. “Zayin,” who can only be identified by his rank and initial in Hebrew, warned Hamas in a video statement that his unit would capture more fortresses.
“The unit went into the fort itself and fought tough battles with terrorists. We killed some, destroyed tunnel shafts and brought back important intelligence material,” the official said. “We will continue to raid your strongholds and kill you in the mineshafts, underground, and wherever you wait for us.”
Materials found by Israeli troops in a Hamas stronghold in Jabaliya, northern Gaza Strip, October 31, 2023. (Israeli Defense Forces)
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said Thursday that more than 9,000 Palestinians, including 3,760 children, have been killed since the war broke out more than three weeks ago. Hamas figures cannot be independently confirmed and the terror group has been accused of artificially inflating the death toll. The figures do not distinguish between terrorists and civilians, nor between those killed in Israeli strikes and those killed by the terrorist group’s hundreds of rockets that failed to reach their targets inside the Gaza Strip.
After the terrorist group’s devastating attack on October 7, in which around 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were brutally murdered in their homes and at a music festival and hundreds more were kidnapped, Israel declared war with the aim of eradicating Hamas.
Twenty-eight days after the Hamas terrorist rampage that plunged the region into war, Palestinian terror groups continued to fire rockets into southern Israel.
An image taken from the southern Israeli city of Sderot shows rockets being fired from Gaza into Israel as smoke rises from Israeli attacks on October 28, 2023 (Aris MESSINIS / AFP)
A rocket fired on Friday evening hit the courtyard of a daycare center in Sderot, causing minor damage to the building, which was closed at the time. Sderot was largely empty after the October 7 attack.
And four rockets were intercepted over Tel Aviv and central Israel by the Iron Dome missile defense system, authorities said. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
Times of Israel staff and agencies contributed to this report.