Dec. 29 (UPI) — Israeli forces continued to ramp up their military operation in and around the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis with a renewed offensive against Hamas infrastructure.
The overnight Thursday assault by troops of the divisional combat team of the paratrooper brigade flushed out a Rocket Propelled Grenade-wielding Hamas fighter from a tunnel shaft and a number of others from a building who were subsequently shot dead, the IDF wrote in an update on X.
The paratroopers also directed tank shelling against Hamas gunmen in another building while soldiers in the 7th Armored Brigade called in a drone strike against a lone Hamas fighter only 100 yards away.
In another incident, troops called in an airstrike by an IDF fighter jet against a group of Hamas gunmen holed up in a building in the city.
Meanwhile, in the north of the Gaza strip, the IDF said its 460th Brigade Combat Team eliminated dozens of terrorists in airstrikes and sniper, machine gun and tank fire, including an incident in which they were rushed by a Hamas fighter with an RPG.
He was killed by tank fire before he could launch his RPG.
Gaza health officials said that in the past 24 hours, another 187 Palestinians had been killed in the strip and 312 injured, bringing the total death toll since Oct. 7 to 21,507 and 55,915 injured.
The latest casualty numbers came as the U.N agency for Palestinian refugees accused Israeli troops of firing on one of its aid convoys in Gaza.
UNRWA director Thomas White said in a post on X that the soldiers opened fire on the convoy as it was returning from the northern part of the strip along a route designated by the Israeli military.
“Our international convoy leader and his team were not injured but one vehicle sustained damage — aid workers should never be a target,” White wrote.
Elsewhere, WAFA, the official Palestinian News Agency, said Israeli security forces arrested 14 Palestinians in a series of raids across the West Bank.
Four were detained in the village of Qaffin in the northern province of Tulkarm along with a 16-year-old resident of Ein as-Sultan refugee camp in Jericho.
In Deir Abu Meshaal near Ramallah, an unspecified number of local residents were arrested in raids and searches of homes and another two people were detained in the Al-Amaari refugee camp in Ramallah.
At least two Palestinians were arrested in the raids on the town of Surif during which Israeli army personnel are alleged to have stolen or confiscated $8,300 from the home of a local Palestinian resident.
In the Al-Far’a refugee camp, in the northern province of Tubas, WAFA said IDF troops pulled an injured young Palestinian man from a Red Crescent ambulance taking him to hospital.
The IDF confirmed the raids by its troops and Shin Bet and Mageb officers in a post on X, but said they made a total of 12 arrests of “wanted persons,” two of whom were suspected of links to Hamas, and that they had seized many weapons.
