A Hamas operative responsible for raising funds for the terror group’s military wing was killed in an Israeli airstrike last week, the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet announced Thursday, as the military pounded the Gaza Strip with strikes it said hit numerous terror targets.
Palestinian media reported that bombings had killed at least 115 Palestinians, citing medical sources. The figures could not be independently verified and did not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
The IDF said it had struck over 130 terror targets in the Strip over the past 48 hours. The targets included rocket launchers, cells of operatives, and buildings used by terror groups to plan attacks on forces, the military said.
Ground troops also killed several operatives and destroyed Hamas infrastructure in both northern and southern Gaza, the IDF added.
According to the military, fundraiser Jasser Hussein Ali Shamieh “was responsible for the transfer of tens of millions of dollars to Hamas’s military wing.”
“These funds were used to build up the force of the military wing, pay Hamas terrorist salaries and fund the terror organization,” the IDF said, adding that the money also “enabled the continuation of fighting and the sustainability of Hamas’s brigades in northern Gaza.”
Shamieh himself previously served as a battalion commander in Hamas’s Gaza City Brigade, the military said.
In recent days, the IDF has been gearing up for a planned major offensive in the Gaza Strip, which officials said would be launched if no hostage deal is reached with Hamas by the end of US President Donald Trump’s visit to the region on Friday.
Hamas said in a statement that Israel was making a “desperate attempt to negotiate under the cover of fire” as indirect ceasefire talks continue through Trump envoys and Qatari and Egyptian mediators in Doha, Reuters reported.
Amir Selha, a 43-year-old Palestinian from north Gaza, told AFP Thursday morning he heard “intense Israeli shelling all night.”
“Tank shells are striking around the clock, and the area is packed with people and tents,” he said.
He added that in the early morning, Israeli army drones dropped leaflets in his neighborhood, warning residents to move south.
Most Gazans have been displaced at least once during 19 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
Israel carried out the latest strikes on the day Palestinians commemorate the “Nakba,” or catastrophe, the Arabic term used for the exodus and expulsion of some 700,000 Palestinians during Israel’s War of Independence against invading Arab armies in 1948.
With most of the 2.3 million people in Gaza internally displaced, some residents of the tiny enclave say suffering is greater now than at that time.
“What we are experiencing now is even worse than the Nakba of 1948,” Ahmed Hamad, a Palestinian in Gaza City who has been displaced multiple times, told Reuters.
“The truth is, we live in a constant state of violence and displacement. Wherever we go, we face attacks. Death surrounds us everywhere.”
The war in Gaza began with the Hamas assault on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
Palestinian health officials told Reuters the Israeli attacks had escalated since Trump started his visit on Tuesday to the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which many Palestinians had hoped he would use to push for a truce.
The latest strikes follow attacks on Gaza on Wednesday that killed at least 80 people, Hamas health officials claimed.
The IDF on Tuesday carried out a massive airstrike targeting an underground command compound below the European Hospital where Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Muhammad Sinwar, was believed to be sheltering. The IDF has since bombed the area several times, in an apparent attempt to prevent anyone from approaching the tunnel beneath the medical center. The IDF has not yet confirmed whether Sinwar, the younger brother of former Hamas leader and October 7 terror mastermind Yahya Sinwar, was killed in the strike.
Over 52,000 people have been killed in the Strip since the start of the war, according to the Hamas health ministry’s unverifiable tally.