Israeli warplanes pounded northern Gaza overnight Friday, hitting more than 150 underground tunnels and bunkers of the Hamas terror group as tanks and other forces pushed into the Strip in a limited incursion, the military said.
Explosions from continuous airstrikes lit up the sky over Gaza City for hours after nightfall Friday. The Israel Defense Forces said a number of Hamas terrorists had been killed in the airstrikes and in several clashes with troops inside Gaza.
Among those killed was the head of Hamas’s so-called aerial array Issam Abu Rukbeh.
A statement from the IDF and Shin Bet intelligence service said that Abu Rukbeh was responsible for managing the terror group’s drones, unmanned aerial vehicles, paragliders, aerial detection systems and air defenses.
The military said that he played a role in the planning and execution of the October 7 onslaught by Hamas by directing the terrorists who entered southern Israel on paragliders, as well as the drone attacks on IDF observation posts. READ MORE