The Israeli navy stated on Thursday that it had apprehended lots of of individuals suspected of terrorism, together with needed Hamas operatives, throughout the Gaza Strip in a single day, and that many had surrendered and been transferred to Israel for additional questioning.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief navy spokesman, stated in a televised briefing that most of the suspects beneath interrogation by the navy and the Shin Wager home safety company had turned themselves over to the Israeli forces.
“The intelligence we gather from the questioning aids us in the continued fight,” he stated.
The bulletins of the surrenders and arrests got here quickly after pictures and movies surfaced on social media showing to indicate rows of males stripped to their underwear, sitting or kneeling on the bottom, with some sure and blindfolded.
The New York Occasions has not verified the photographs or the video. Admiral Hagari didn’t reply instantly when requested in regards to the photographs, however reiterated the Israeli navy’s aim of discovering and capturing Hamas operatives.
“They hide under the ground and come out and we battle them,” Admiral Hagari stated. Some, he added, “come out of tunnel shafts and others out of houses. We question and investigate who among them is connected to Hamas and who is not. We detain all of them and interrogate them.”
One other navy spokesman, Maj. Nir Dinar, stated the navy had not launched the photographs and didn’t know when, or if, Israeli troopers had taken them.
The Israeli navy stated in an announcement that troops had arrested lots of of individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism over the previous day, throughout fight in Shejaiya and Jabaliya, Hamas strongholds within the northern Gaza Strip, and Khan Younis, one other Hamas bastion within the south of the Palestinian enclave.
As well as, the navy stated, a military intelligence unit and the Shin Wager labored collectively on Thursday to arrest one other 150 terrorism suspects, together with Hamas operatives, from the realm of the Jabaliya refugee camp, and that they have been being questioned in Gaza. The navy had beforehand said that its human intelligence unit was working an interrogation facility inside Gaza.
Since starting its floor invasion of Gaza in late October, Israel has arrested lots of of Palestinians, amongst them the director of Al-Shifa Hospital, the strip’s largest medical facility. Israel has contended that Hamas was utilizing the hospital as a command-and-control middle. The navy has uncovered a stretch of tunnel operating beneath the hospital compound.
Admiral Hagari added that Israeli forces have been advancing on Thursday and intensifying the battle in opposition to Hamas’s strongholds in northern and southern Gaza, killing senior commanders hiding in underground tunnels and destroying Hamas infrastructure.
The navy stated on Thursday that it had killed a senior Hamas operative in an airstrike just a few days in the past that hit Hamas’s central intelligence command middle. The operative, it stated, is Abdel Aziz Rantisi, from Hamas’ navy intelligence unit, who the navy stated had been answerable for area intelligence within the strip and helped to plan the Oct. 7 assault in southern Israel.
Over the previous couple of days, the navy stated, its forces have been preventing in close-quarter fight, killing “dozens” of armed operatives, and have positioned and destroyed weapons and underground infrastructure, “predominantly located inside and in the vicinity of civilian buildings,” in addition to rocket launchers and tunnel shafts, together with one inside a college in Shejaiya.
It was not attainable to independently confirm Israel’s account of the preventing.
Additionally on Thursday, an anti-tank missile that was fired into northern Israel from Lebanese territory killed an Israeli civilian. Israel stated it had responded to that strike and extra launches from Lebanon with tank and artillery fireplace, and airstrikes in opposition to targets together with what the navy described as a command-and-control middle of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite group.
