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IDF eliminates 50 terror targets in Gaza, killing Hamas commander

In parallel, there are reports in Arab media of the IDF starting to dismantle its military infrastructure in the Strip.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The IDF eliminated fifty terror targets throughout Gaza overnight Tuesday, including a senior Hamas commander who operated out of an ostensible school building.

Guided by precise military and Shin Bet (internal security agency) intelligence, the high-ranking terrorist was hit in an airstrike on the former educational institution, which Hamas had turned into a command-and-control complex.

The compound was located in Duraj Tuffah, between Jabalya and Shejaia in the northern part of the Strip that has been the focus of significant IDF ground forces’ operations for weeks to destroy newly-re-formed terror brigades.

Other airstrikes took place in Khan Yunis in the south and Deir al-Balah in the center, destroying terrorist cells, weapons depots, underground infrastructure, and Hamas anti-tank positions, the army said.

These bombings join the more than 1,400 other airstrikes the IAF conducted in December alone against such targets, either as independent actions or in close support of ground troops, who call in air support as needed.

But while the army is continuing to convey a “business as usual” attitude in conducting its anti-Hamas operations, there are reports that it is preparing for the consequences of the hostage deal whose negotiations are reportedly near the finish line in Doha.

Read  Smotrich says hostage deal would be a 'mistake,' urges 'crushing Hamas' instead

Citing Palestinian sources, Qatari newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed has reported that the IDF had begun dismantling infrastructure it had built along the Netzarim Corridor that cuts the Gaza Strip roughly in half.

According to the report, “Local eyewitnesses in Gaza said that military transport vehicles entered the Netzarim axis, one of the important strategic points in the Strip, and began the process of dismantling military towers on its western side.”

While the IDF will reportedly leave populated areas of the Strip while remaining in its various buffer zones in the first stage of a deal, which is to last six weeks, Hamas has made clear that in order to get the rest of the hostages back, both living and dead, in future stages, Israel will have to completely withdraw from the Gazan enclave and end the war.

Many in the Israeli public, including right-wing politicians, military experts and some hostages’ families, believe that Israel cannot afford to leave the most sensitive areas in the Strip, especially the borders, both between Israel and Gaza and Egypt and Gaza, in order to prevent Hamas from regrouping, rearming, and again posing a serious security threat to the country.