Tel Aviv [Israel], December 28 (ANI): The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has asked residents in many parts of central Gaza to leave immediately while its operations against Hamas continue, CNN reported.
In a message posted in Arabic on X, the IDF urged residents in 15 identified blocks south of Wadi Gaza to move to shelters. The regions include the Al-Bureij refugee camp.
In its message, the IDF said people in the identified blocks “must immediately move to the shelters in Deir al-Balah. A temporary tactical local suspension of military activities will be imposed for humanitarian purposes in the southern neighbourhood of Deir al-Balah from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm for provisions purposes,” CNN reported.
The IDF urged people not to move along the central axis, the Salah Al-Din road, due to the fighting in the Khan Younis area of Gaza, according to CNN report. It said, “The IDF will allow the humanitarian movement of civilians through the bypass axis west of Khan Younis.”
Meanwhile, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) located and destroyed three terror tunnel shafts belonging to the Hamas terror organisation near the Rantisi Hospital and in the nearby high School on Wednesday.
The tunnel shafts that the Hamas fighters used are dozens of metres deep and are linked by an underground network that runs beneath the hospital and into Gaza City”IDF troops are uncovering Hamas’ tunnels inside and around multiple hospitals within Gaza. The Rantisi Hospital is just another terrorist stronghold used to connect and transfer terrorists and weapons throughout Gaza to be used against Israelis,” the IDF wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter), after recovering the tunnel.
In recent weeks, IDF soldiers led by the 162nd Division’s 401st Brigade, in collaboration with Flotilla 13 and the ‘Yahalom’ Unit, discovered and searched three active tunnel shafts near Rantisi Hospital.
‘Yahalom’ soldiers searched the region, as well as, the shafts and tunnels, employing a variety of methods to map the topography of the tunnels and the linkages between the shafts.Notably, Yahalom is a sayeret unit of the Israeli Combat Engineering Corps of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
According to the IDF, this operation revealed that the shafts are connected by a wide underground network passing under the hospital, spanning several kilometres, and leading to strategic points in the heart of Gaza City.
“The tunnel in Rantisi is close to a school and leads to another school in the area. The tunnel also served as a command and control centre for conducting combat in the northern Gaza Strip and for carrying out terrorist attacks,” the IDF said. The Israeli forces said that the operational shaft was located in a girls’ school in the area was about 20 metres deep and included an elevator and electrical infrastructure.”
Following intelligence information directed by Unit 504 of the Intelligence Directorate, another operational shaft was located inside one of the hideout residences used by one of the commanders of Hamas’ naval unit in the Gaza Strip,” the IDF said.
Junctions and blast doors were placed in the tunnels’ topography to prevent IDF soldiers from breaking in and to secure the tunnel system. The tunnel infrastructure and shafts were demolished in a coordinated operation by soldiers from the ‘Yahalom’ Unit and engineering soldiers from the 14th Brigade, the IDF added. (ANI)
