Largest Gaza Battle in Two Months: IDF Kills Dozens of Hamas Terrorists

Division 98 of the IDF killed dozens of Hamas terrorists in Jabalya in northern Gaza on Tuesday, in the largest battle in Gaza since mid-March and the largest battle in Jabalya since January.

While the IDF re – entered Jabalya over Shabbos and Sunday, only on Tuesday did the IDF finally find and confront larger quantities of Hamas’s reconstituted forces in that northern Gaza area.

Up until this point, the combat in Jabalya had only involved the IDF fighting a few Hamas members at a time, and dealing with smaller terror cells since January.

The last large fight anywhere in Gaza was when the IDF went back to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in mid-March. That battle lasted between one to two weeks, depending on how one categorizes different stages of the fighting.

Until this point, it had been unclear why the IDF needed to evacuate 100,000-150,000 civilians in Jabalya, given that the last few days have involved relatively minor altercations.

However, multiple defense sources have been telling the Jerusalem Post that the fighting on Tuesday are proof of a more significant volume of Hamas terrorists reconstituting themselves in Jabalya.

Meanwhile elsewhere in Gaza, the IDF’s 162nd Division continued smaller battles in Rafah, and IDF’s 99th Division continued smaller battles in Zeitoun, with both these battles killing lower numbers of Hamas terrorists.

The IDF has yet to expand its operations in Rafah beyond sections of the eastern Rafah area, although Israeli defense sources have stated that such an operation could be coming soon. CNN has reported that the US beleives Israel is massing additional IDF forces ready to broaden the Rafah operation.

Given threats from the Biden Admin. to stop transferring large bombs to Israel, Israel may decide to invade Rafah without using as much airpower as it had done in fighting in other parts of Gaza.

There are fears this could expose IDF ground forces to greater dangers. IDF forces would still be able to use tanks and artillery to overpower Hamas’s four Rafah battalions.

Israel’s air force is still operating over the skies of Gaza, with the IDF announcing on Tuesday that it carried out over 100 airstrikes throughout the Strip over Monday-Tuesday.

{Matzav.com}