Troops found hundreds of weapons, IEDs, and grenades, in addition, a number of rocket manufacturing workshops and launchers were also located and destroyed.

The post WATCH: IDF forces complete weeks-long raids in Jabalia appeared first on World Israel News.

In addition, many arms Hamas are using were stolen from IDF bases.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

In a report that is a bombshell in more ways than one, The New York Times reported Sunday that Hamas is using Israel’s own shells against her, repurposing their contents in the rockets it has launched at the country in their thousands since its surprise attack on October 7, 2023 that launched the ongoing war.

“Unexploded ordnance is a main source of explosives for Hamas,” said Michael Cardash, an ex-deputy head of Israel’s National Police Bomb Disposal Division. “They are cutting open bombs from Israel, artillery bombs from Israel, and a lot of them are being used, of course… for their explosives and rockets.”

Israeli investigators found proof of this after inspecting in turn Hamas rockets shot at the Jewish state that failed to explode, and finding that its military-grade contents were “probably” from a old missile fired by the Israeli air force, said the report.

Other weapons found to contain Israeli explosives include like anti-tank mines, thermobaric and rocket-propelled grenades, and improvised devices.

According to unnamed weapons experts cited by the New York daily, due to years of answering Hamas terror attacks with short rounds of warfare that were mostly confined to air strikes, but especially since all-out war was declared over three months ago, there are “thousands of tons” of explosives lying around the coastal enclave, since statistically about 10% of ordinance does not detonate on contact.

As the report noted, “One 750-pound bomb that fails to detonate can become hundreds of missiles or rockets.” The terrorists’ “sophisticated” rocket manufacturing sites, some of which IDF forces have found both above and deep underground over the past few weeks, are capable of “saw[ing] into the warheads of bombs weighing up to 2,000 pounds, to harvest the explosives,” it added.

Israeli officials are reportedly nonplussed at the extent to which Hamas has been able to repurpose the contents of air force munitions.

They perhaps should not have been surprised, however, as Hamas has boasted of its abilities to do this in online videos and to reporters in the Arab media.

After 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, for example, Gazan teams collected undetonated howitzer rounds and bombs with the deliberate “aim to repurpose these pieces, turning this crisis into an opportunity,” a Hamas Qassam Brigades commander told Al Jazeera some six years later.

It is yet one more sign of how badly Israel underestimated the capabilities and drive of its Islamic extremist enemy, which overran the border in over two dozen places with some 3,000 combatants on foot, in trucks and by motorized hang gliders to massacre over 1,200 people in Gazan envelope communities on what Israelis are calling “the black Sabbath.”

Another source of concern is the sheer number of IDF rifles, ammunition and grenades that Israeli soldiers in Gaza have found in storage sites in and under schools, homes, mosques and hospitals, as well as on the bodies of dead Hamas combatants.

The problem of massive thefts from IDF bases has been well covered in the Israeli media. Now the army knows where a good part of the deadly goods ended up, successfully smuggled into Gaza despite all of Israel’s efforts to block the flow.

Jerusalem has blamed Egypt for not doing enough to prevent tunnel smuggling under its own border with Gaza, a claim that Cairo angrily denies. Israel would like to control the Philadelphi corridor that runs along southern Gaza as it did before the 2005 Disengagement for this reason, but Egypt has so far firmly rejected the idea, saying it would contravene its peace agreement with Israel.

The post Israel’s own bombs are the main source of Hamas explosives – report appeared first on World Israel News.

Six of the deaths and most of the injuries were caused by an explosion at a Hamas rocket factory.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

On Monday, nine IDF soldiers were killed and eight were wounded in three separate incidents during operations in Gaza.

Six of the deaths and most of the injuries resulted from an explosion while IDF soldiers were close to a Hamas rocket factory, the largest of its kind, discovered recently in al-Bureij in central Gaza.

To destroy terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, the soldiers were preparing to blow up the facility, and a truck was transporting explosives.

An error in timing or a technical problem could have led to the fatal explosion or the deaths could have resulted from a delayed explosive device placed there by Hamas terrorists.

In addition, two soldiers were killed in Khan Younis and another soldier died in a third incident in Gaza.

On Tuesday morning, four names were announced by the IDF.

Sgt. Roi Tal (19) from Kfar Yehoshua was a fighter in the 94th Battalion Kfir Brigade and fell in battle southern Gaza.

Maj. (res.) David Schwartz (26) from Elazar was a fighter in the 8219th Engineering Battalion Haci Hash formation (551) and fell in battle in southern Gaza.

Maj. General (res.) Yakir Hexter (26) from Jerusalem was a fighter in the 8291 Engineering Battalion Hace Hash formation (551) and fell in battle in southern Gaza.

Maj. (ret.) Gavriel Bloom (27) from Beit Shemesh was a fighter in the divisional engineering team of the 36th division and fell in battle in southern Gaza.

Five more names were announced by the IDF on Tuesday afternoon.

Maj.(res.) Amit Moshe Shahar (25) from Ramat Yochanan was a soldier in the Yahalom unit of the Combat Engineering Corps and fell in battle in the center Gaza.

Capt. (ret.) Denis Krokhmalov Veksler (32) from Be’er Sheva was a combat engineering officer in the Yahalom unit of the Combat Engineering Corps and fell in battle in the center of Gaza.

Capt. Ron Efrimi (26) from Hod Hasharon was a combat engineering officer in the Yahalom unit of the Combat Engineering Corps and fell in battle in the center Gaza.

Maj. (res.) Roi Avraham Maimon (24) from Afula was a combat paramedic in the Yahalom unit of the Combat Engineering Corps and fell in battle in the center of Gaza.

Maj. (res.) Akiva Yasinskiy (35) from Ramat Gan was a soldier in the 8173 Engineering Battalion the ‘Etzioni’ Brigade (6) and fell in battle in the center of Gaza.

Bloom, and the five names released on Tuesday afternoon all died in the same incident in Gaza.

The post 9 IDF soldiers killed and 8 wounded in single day of fighting in Gaza appeared first on World Israel News.