The IDF has “an intensive night ahead of us” and will strike “new locations” of the sprawling network in two other sections of the Gaza Strip that have not yet been hit over the past four nights, IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Hidai Zilberman said.
He made his comments after a terrorist mortar barrage targeted the Eshkol region in the northwestern Negev. Two Thai workers were killed and several civilians and a soldier were wounded.
At least 10 civilians were wounded, four of them seriously, following the barrage of more than 50 mortars earlier Tuesday. The two Thai workers died on their way to Soroka-University Medical Center in Beersheba.
A 19-year-old soldier was also wounded in his upper body by shrapnel when a mortar hit the Erez crossing, where his unit was assisting in transferring humanitarian aid shipments to the Gaza Strip. He was transferred to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon in stable condition.
Israel had temporarily reopened the Kerem Shalom crossing to allow for the transfer of truckloads of fuel, medicine, animal feed and fuel tanks to the coastal enclave.
“The entry of the trucks was coordinated following the request of the international community and approved by the defense minister this morning,” the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said, adding that following the mortar barrage, Kerem Shalom crossing was closed.
Dozens of rockets were launched at Israeli communities in the Gaza periphery and at Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beersheba.
Earlier in the day, the IDF said it had struck a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) cell preparing to launch rockets toward Israel from central Gaza. It also bombed another 120 targets over the past 24 hours, including 10 rocket launchers.
The majority of the strikes were focused in the wealthy Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, Zilberman said.
Despite calls for a ceasefire, Defense Minister Benny Gantz said the IDF has thousands of more targets left to strike.
“No person, area or neighborhood in Gaza is immune,” he said at a navy base in Ashdod. “We have thousands of more attack targets… The IDF has many plans to continue striking Hamas, and the fighting won’t stop until we bring about complete and long-term calm.”
“The…
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