Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Activities
- Last weekend, the IDF conducted an airstrike on a compound where Hamas’s number 2 in Gaza, Mohammed Deif, who is also the organization’s military chief, was hiding. He appears to have been killed in the attack.
- The IDF confirmed that Hamas senior commander Rafa’a Salameh, who oversaw the terrorist group’s Khan Younis battalion, was killed. Hamas claims that 90 people were killed in the attack. According to the IDF, a majority of those killed, including guards of Dief and Salameh, are affiliated with Hamas.
- Deif was a founding member of Hamas’s Qassam Brigades; he was one of the masterminds behind the October 7 massacres. For over three decades, he promoted terrorism, planned bombings, and masterminded the murder of Israelis and the abduction of soldiers. In 1989, during the height of the first Palestinian Intifada, Deif arrested by Israel and released after 16 months in prison.
- Deif was designated as a terrorist by the United States in 2015, along with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Deif has been on Israel’s most-wanted list since 1995. He has survived multiple assassination attempts in the past.
- Photos of the location of the strike show the scene both before and after. They support the IDF's claims that this strike was targeted solely at the Hamas compound.
- In keeping with a recent Israeli Supreme Court decision, Israel’s Defense Ministry has instructed the IDF to send out 1,000 draft orders on Sunday to members of the ultra-Orthodox community. The orders are the first stage in the screening process that the military carries out for recruits, ahead of enlistment in the military in the upcoming year. The IDF has said it can draft 3,000 Haredi men in the next twelve months. Prominent ultra-Orthodox rabbis have urged yeshiva students to ignore any communication from the IDF.
- On Sunday, in a ramming attack at a bus station near Ramle (south of Tel Aviv), a Palestinian drove his car into a bus stop, injuring four, including one critically.
- See here for a complete list of IDF soldiers killed since October 7.
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