The Israeli Air Force struck dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip throughout the weekend, including terror operatives and infrastructure used by Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces said.
According to Hamas authorities in Gaza, 60 people were killed and dozens more were wounded in the strikes. The terror group’s figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
The IDF said a drone strike on Friday in Gaza City’s Sabra neighborhood killed a prominent Hamas operative involved in manufacturing weapons, and in a separate incident on Friday, soldiers of the Paratroopers Brigade spotted a cell of four armed operatives and eliminated them.
The paratroopers also located and destroyed several explosive devices that had been planted in their area of operations, the IDF added.
Meanwhile, rockets were launched from southern Gaza toward Israel on Saturday, setting off alarms in the border communities of Nirim and Ein Hashlosha, the military said. The rockets landed in open areas near the communities, and no injuries or damages were reported.
On Saturday evening, the IDF reissued a wide evacuation warning for the entire Rafah and Khan Younis area in the southern Strip. It called for Palestinians residing in areas marked on a map in red to evacuate westward toward the Mawasi area on the coast.
The latest order covers much of the same areas previously ordered to evacuate in March and earlier this month.
On Saturday, the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) issued a message to Gazans after a video posted to social media on Friday showed a Palestinian in the Strip criticizing Hamas leadership.
“Residents of Gaza, the Hamas leadership has sold you out. This is the same leadership that deceived you. Instead of focusing on caring for the civilian population, it abandoned its people, while senior leaders abroad indulge in luxury on airplanes, in hotels, and in restaurants,” COGAT chief Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian said in a Facebook post, where he attached an edited version of the social media video with subtitles. The full context of the clip was unclear.
Israel has been attempting to drive a wedge between Hamas and the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza to weaken the terror group’s hold on the Strip.
On Friday, an Israeli defense official asserted that Hamas’s rule in Gaza was slipping as a new aid distribution system ramped up activities.
However, the new system, which is being run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has been criticized for not sufficiently addressing the population’s nutritional needs and for the chaos that has repeatedly erupted at its distribution points.
Palestinian media reports on Saturday said over 100 UN World Food Programme trucks loaded with flour were looted in the Khan Younis area. According to the Ynet news site, the flour was only set to be distributed on Sunday.
In video footage on social media, gunfire could be heard at the scene, but there were no immediate reports of injuries.
A separate incident posted on social media appeared to show a crowd of Gazans running toward a distribution site to grab boxes of aid.
A GHF spokesperson downplayed the footage, asserting that the scene was relatively calm and that a certain level of chaos is expected at the current time, due to the hunger levels in Gaza.
According to the GHF, its contractors running the site allowed Palestinians to take boxes themselves, while helping those in need, and the hope is to soon transition to a more orderly process when desperation in Gaza dies down.
Under pressure from allies, Israel has begun allowing some humanitarian aid into Gaza after blocking all food, medicine, fuel and other goods from entering since March 2.
Aid groups have warned of famine and say the aid that has come in is nowhere near enough to meet the mounting needs of an increasingly desperate population.
Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid and says goods need to be tightly controlled to prevent them from being hoarded by the terror group.