Israeli warplanes bombed the northern Gaza Strip overnight Friday, hitting more than 150 underground tunnels and bunkers belonging to the Hamas terror group, as tanks and other forces advanced into the Gaza Strip in a limited push, the military said.
After nightfall on Friday, explosions caused by ongoing airstrikes lit up the sky over Gaza City for hours. Israeli forces said several Hamas terrorists were killed in the airstrikes and in several clashes with troops in the Gaza Strip.
Among those killed was the head of the so-called Hamas airstrike, Issam Abu Rukbeh.
A statement from the IDF and Shin Bet intelligence agency said Abu Rukbeh was responsible for managing the terror group’s drones, unmanned aerial vehicles, paragliders, air detection systems and air defense systems.
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The military said he played a role in planning and executing Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, directing the terrorists who paraglided into southern Israel as well as drone strikes on IDF observation posts.
It also said Hamas Naval Forces Gaza City Brigade commander Rateb Abu Sahiban was killed in a nighttime airstrike.
The IDF said Abu Sahiban planned and commanded a sea-based Hamas infiltration attempt on October 24 that was foiled by Israeli naval forces.
There were no reports of Israeli casualties and ground forces, including infantry, combat troops and tanks, remained in the Gaza Strip on Saturday morning, pushing deeper into Hamas-controlled territory than in previous limited operations.
Hamas said it thwarted Israel’s nighttime ground attack, using Kornet anti-tank missiles and mortar shells to repel the attack and claimed to have caused casualties among Israeli troops. The terrorist group did not provide any evidence.
The IDF released footage of ground forces operating in the Gaza Strip overnight and on Saturday morning.
The military said it would soon make assessments on next steps, whether further expanding ground operations, pausing the ongoing crackdown or switching to other plans.
Also on Saturday, the army announced that it would allow significantly more humanitarian aid from Egypt into the southern Gaza Strip.
The IDF hopes the additional food, water and medical supplies will encourage more Palestinians to leave the northern part of the Gaza Strip toward the south.
A still image from a video released by the IDF shows Israeli tanks rolling into the Gaza Strip on October 28, 2023. (Screenshot: IDF)
Israel has repeatedly warned that it is heavily targeting Gaza City and other areas of northern Gaza, where Hamas is believed to have its main bases of operations and extensive underground facilities, many of which lie beneath the city. The IDF says it will not allow fuel into the Gaza Strip because it is used by Hamas to direct fighting against Israel.
Palestinian reports from Gaza were scarce after internet and telephone services collapsed due to the Israeli bombardment, leading to a near-total information blackout and largely cutting Gaza off from contact with the outside world.
Palestinian telecommunications provider Paltel said the bombing caused a “complete disruption” of internet, mobile and landline services. The lockdown meant casualties from attacks and details of ground attacks could not be immediately released. Some satellite phones continued to work.
In one of the few reports to emerge from Gaza on Saturday, a BBC reporter said there was “total chaos” in the Gaza Strip.
“There was a massive bombardment in the north of the Gaza Strip on a scale we have never experienced before,” wrote Rushdi Abualouf. “Here at the hospital, ambulance drivers told me that they could not communicate with anyone and so they were only driving in the direction of the explosions.”
“Hundreds of buildings and houses have been completely destroyed and thousands of other homes damaged,” Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Gaza Civil Defense, told AFP, saying the intense bombardment had “changed the landscape” in the northern Gaza Strip.
People search the rubble of a destroyed building after Israeli attacks on the Al-Shatee camp in Gaza City on October 28, 2023. (Mohammed Abed/AFP)
Witnesses said most of the bombings were concentrated in the area around two hospitals – Al-Shifa and the so-called Indonesian Hospital – in the Jabaliya district of northern Gaza.
The attacks left large craters in the streets and destroyed many buildings in the area.
The Israeli military announced Friday evening that Hamas was using Shifa Hospital in Gaza City as its main base of operations, providing footage and intercepted audio recordings as evidence of the terrorist organization’s activities.
Hagari said Israel has information that there are several tunnels leading from outside the hospital to the underground base, so Hamas officials do not have to enter the hospital to get there. But Hagari added that there is also an entrance to the underground complex from one of the districts.
A satellite image released by the IDF shows that, according to the military, Hamas command centers are located beneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza. (IDF)
Hagari also said Israel had “concrete evidence” that “hundreds of terrorists flocked to the hospital to hide after the October 7 terrorist attack.”
Hamas’ internal security also has a command center at Shifa Hospital from which it directs rocket fire toward Israel and stores weapons, he added.
Israel stepped up airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Friday evening, saying it would expand ground operations in the coastal enclave after several nights of limited airstrikes.
Smoke and explosions caused by Israeli attacks are seen on the horizon in the northern Gaza Strip on October 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Abed Khaled)
“The air force is attacking underground targets very heavily,” said IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.
“In addition to the attacks we have carried out in recent days, ground forces are expanding their activities this evening. The IDF is acting with great force … to achieve the war goals.”
Over the past two days, IDF infantry troops and tanks conducted limited operations in the Gaza Strip.
Hagari said the IDF would continue to attack Gaza City and surrounding areas in the north of the Gaza Strip and renewed his call for Palestinians to evacuate to the south of the Gaza Strip.
“We are ready to defend in all arenas. We act to protect the security interests of the State of Israel,” he said.
This image from AFP-TV footage shows a volley of rockets fired by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza City on October 27, 2023. (Yousef Hassouna/AFP)
The Hamas terror group’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said it was facing Israeli forces in Gaza and that there were “actions” near Beit Hanoun in the northern part of the Palestinian enclave and in Bureij. “violent clashes” occurred in the center.
U.S. and Israeli officials told ABC News that the Israeli ground attack in Gaza was not the expected large-scale offensive that Israel has been threatening for three weeks – aimed at closing down Hamas after its devastating attack on Israel on October 7 smashed. This Saturday morning, around 2,500 terrorists poured into Israel by land, sea and air, killing over 1,400 people, most of them civilians, in their homes and at an outdoor music festival in border communities in southern Israel. Hamas and allied terrorist groups also dragged more than 230 hostages – including about 30 children – to the Gaza Strip, where they remain trapped.
An unnamed American source told ABC that Friday’s operation was another limited operation. And IDF spokesman Peter Lerner said the activity was not the major operation that had been expected since the devastating terrorist attack.
On Friday evening, White House national security spokesman John Kirby repeatedly refused to comment on the expanded activities, saying Washington would not draw “red lines” for Israel.
“We don’t draw any red lines for Israel,” Kirby said on a call with reporters on Friday. “We will continue to support them,” but “from the beginning we have had and will continue to have conversations about how they do this.”
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant earlier told a small group of foreign reporters that Israel expects a long and difficult ground offensive in the Gaza Strip soon. It “will take a long time” to dismantle Hamas’ vast network of tunnels, he said, adding that he expected a prolonged period of lower fighting intensity as Israel destroys “pockets of resistance.”
Hamas had previously called on countries around the world to “act immediately” to stop Israel’s response to the October 7 massacre.
Israel has vowed to destroy the Palestinian terrorist organization while minimizing damage to civilians in the Gaza Strip.
A photo taken on October 28, 2023 near the southern Israeli city of Sderot shows an Israeli Merkava tank rolling near Israel’s border with the northern Gaza Strip. (Aris Messinis/AFP)
On Friday evening, terrorists in Gaza launched a series of rocket attacks on Israel, targeting cities in southern and central Israel. A foreign worker was moderately injured after a rocket hit agricultural land near Rishon Lezion, according to medics.
In Sderot, two rockets fired from Gaza hit a house and an outside shelter. There was some damage, but no one was hurt.
Gaza terrorists have fired thousands of rockets into Israel since October 7, killing and wounding dozens, displacing hundreds of thousands and disrupting the education of hundreds of thousands of children as schools remain closed or open on a limited basis.
The IDF has been preparing for several weeks for a large-scale attack to eradicate the terrorist group ruling the Gaza Strip following its murderous attack in southern Israel.
It has bombed the Gaza Strip on an unprecedented scale to eliminate potential threats to ground forces when the order finally comes. The airstrikes have leveled entire neighborhoods and caused a level of destruction never seen before in the last four wars between Israel and Hamas.
Also on Friday, the military said at least 233 hostages were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip in the devastating Oct. 7 attack.
Hagari said the military had informed the families of 229 hostages that their loved ones were currently being held in the enclave.
The figure does not include four released hostages – mother and daughter Judith and Natalie Ra’anan, who were released a week ago, and elderly women Yocheved Lifshitz and Nurit Cooper, who were released Monday evening.
Hagari said the number was not final as the military continued to seek new information.
Graffiti calling for the release of Israelis held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, October 27, 2023. (Shir Torem/Flash90)
However, a member of a Hamas delegation visiting Russia claimed that the terror group still did not know where all the people kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists during their attack were being held.
The Hamas official named Abu Hamid claimed in an interview with Russia’s semi-official Kommersant news agency that the terror group had always been ready to release civilians but “needed time to find them.” He also claimed that members of various groups were holding hostages and that a ceasefire was needed so that Hamas could conduct its search, find the hostages and then release them.
On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Israel had agreed to a request from the United States to temporarily postpone its planned ground attack in the Gaza Strip to give Washington more time to deploy additional air defense systems to protect its troops in the region.
The US was also reportedly concerned that Israel lacks achievable military targets for its operations in Gaza, leading to fears that the IDF was not yet ready for a ground attack.
According to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, more than 7,000 people have been killed in the Israeli attacks, including many children. The figures released by the terror group cannot be independently verified and are believed to include its own terrorists and gunmen killed in Israel and the Gaza Strip, and that the victims are, Israel says, hundreds of stray Palestinian rockets , who have ended up in the Gaza Strip since the war began. Israel says it killed 1,500 Hamas terrorists in Israel on and after October 7.
Times of Israel agencies and staff contributed to this report.