Hamas hid terrorist command post and weapons unit within refugee camp, says Israel
Israel’s air strikes and ground operation in the Jabalia refugee camp hit a military stronghold built within a civilian neighbourhood.
Israel’s military chiefs ordered a series of airstrikes on a notorious Hamas lieutenant hiding within the largest refugee camp in Gaza, accusing the terrorists of commandeering civilian buildings in the densely packed region and using them as cover for command centres and missile firing posts to attack the Jewish state.
At least 50 deaths were reported as a result of the strikes and a daylong ground battle waged in Jabalia, one of eight refugee camps in the territory, with the Israel Defence Forces saying those neutralised were terrorist operatives affiliated with Ibrahim Biari, a high-value target who led Hamas activities in the northern region of Gaza.
Authorities in Gaza said many of the dead were civilians.
The attack came as 23 Australians were able to escape the deteriorating hell-hole conditions of Gaza Strip after the Rafeh crossing into Egypt was opened on Wednesday.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said there were 88 Australians and family members in contact with the government in the area.
A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman said officials were “communicating with all individuals registered with us in Gaza about departure options, including to make them aware of the possibility of the opening of the Rafah border on 1 November”.
Biari, hiding in an underground bunker, was killed by fighter jets using intelligence supplied by Israel’s domestic security agency, Shin Bet.
A figure who carried out a terrorist attack on Israel in 2004, ending with the murder of 13 Israelis, Biari was alleged to have dispatched a team of “Nukhba” operatives into southern Israel on October 7, precipitating the current conflict.
Anticipating a backlash for striking civilian territory, the IDF released a detailed map of Biari’s “military stronghold” in Jabalia, identifying the locations of a weapons facility, intelligence centre, several tunnels, rocket launching posts and a command-and-control site, all a short distance from a medical centre, school and two mosques.
The IDF has repeatedly stated that Hamas’s critical strategic locations are inside or beneath civilian infrastructure, the group’s operational nerve centre now alleged by the Israelis to be located under Gaza City’s Shifa hospital, which has yet to be targeted by any overt military offensive.
The IDF also published a satellite image of the Shifa hospital complex, the Gaza Strip’s largest medical facility, and marked in red locations that it said were four underground Hamas complexes and one command-and-control centre.
Many of those involved in the attacks on Israel last month took cover in Shifa after returning to Gaza, the IDF said.
The IDF also said other hospitals were being used by Hamas but did not mention which ones or how, except to say that some tunnels were located near them.
News of the Jabalia strike rattled sections of the international community, with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates condemning the operation, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announcing a fresh round of diplomatic engagements starting in Israel on Friday, his third trip since October 7.
The Pentagon announced that a further 300 troops would also be dispatched to the Middle East from their bases in the US.
Mr Blinken said earlier that a revitalised Palestinian Authority stands the best hope of governing Gaza in the event that Hamas is eradicated by the IDF, telling a Senate committee: “At some point, what would make the most sense would be for an effective and revitalised Palestinian Authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility for Gaza.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke of his own concerns following the airstrikes and after a telephone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, held three weeks after a request by the Australian government was submitted, a perceived snub remarked upon in the aftermath of October 7 by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.
“We say that Israel has a right to defend itself but how it defends itself matters,” Mr Albanese said on Wednesday.
“We want to see all innocent lives protected. Every life matters.
“Every Israeli, every Palestinian, innocent people have been impacted by this in Israel and in Palestine and we are concerned about humanitarian issues.”
Egypt, which blocked its Rafah border crossing with Gaza, has steadfastly refused to accept Palestinian refugees but appears likely to relent under international pressure to take in the severely wounded for treatment in its Sinai-based field hospitals.
With the ground incursion advancing and special forces and armoured vehicles now much deeper into the Gaza Strip, IDF officials say the combat environment has shifted to close-quarter fighting, resulting in an uptick in Israeli military casualties, among them the infantry who entered Jabalia on foot to secure it.
“This is complex hand-to-hand combat. In the fierce battles that took place today, we lost troops,” IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.
Meanwhile, Israeli naval vessels have been dispatched to the Red Sea after a surface-to-surface missile and drones were intercepted in the vicinity of Eilat, in Israel’s south, launched by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels operating in Yemen.
“They try to challenge us, divert our attention away from the war in Gaza,” Rear Admiral Hagari said. “We remain focused on the fighting in Gaza.”
A Houthi spokesman said the attacks would continue until the “Israeli aggression stops”.
Israel said nine soldiers were killed as troops engaged in “fierce battles” with Hamas militants “deep inside the Gaza Strip” on Tuesday.
Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, has vowed to turn Gaza into a “graveyard” for invading forces.
Israelis also face a daily barrage of aerial attacks from Hamas and other Iran-backed groups around the Middle East.
Yemen’s Huthi rebels said they had “launched a large batch of ballistic missiles … and a large number of armed aircraft” towards Israel on Tuesday.
Israel’s military said a “hostile aircraft intrusion” had set off warning sirens in Eilat, its Red Sea resort, and a surface-to-surface missile was “successfully intercepted.”
In the north, Israel has traded near-daily fire with Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.
Additional reporting: Noah Yim, Agencies
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