Two rockets were launched from the northern Gaza Strip at the Nahal Oz area on Monday, the military said, the second time in just over a week that such attacks were made on Israeli territory.
Interceptors were fired at the two rockets, which ultimately did not cross the border and fell short inside the Strip, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
Alerts were activated in open areas only, and not in any towns, “according to protocol,” the military added.
Last week, two rockets were fired at Ashdod, one of which was intercepted, while the other hit an open area.
Monday’s rocket fire came as the IDF pressed on with an all-out assault on Gaza City, whose aim, Israel says, is to wipe out Hamas in its final redoubts.
Gaza medics linked to Hamas said the military killed at least 18 people across the Strip, most of them in Gaza City. The figures could not be verified, and did not distinguish between fighters and noncombatants.
The Israeli Air Force struck some 140 targets in the Gaza Strip in the past day, including buildings used by terror groups, operatives, and other infrastructure, the military said.
The Israeli Navy also operated in Gaza, shelling a weapons depot and other buildings used by Hamas operatives in the Strip’s north, the IDF said.
The strikes came as ground troops from three IDF divisions continued to push into Gaza City.
The IDF said the 36th Division destroyed several buildings used by Hamas to observe forces, and directed a drone strike that killed a cell of gunmen planting bombs; troops of the 98th Division killed a Hamas operative who had launched mortars at the forces; and soldiers of the 162nd Division killed several operatives and neutralized booby traps.
Elsewhere, in northern Gaza, the 99th Division hit several more buildings used by Hamas for surveillance, while in the Strip’s south, soldiers of the Gaza Division killed several operatives near the forces in the southern Khan Younis area, the IDF said.
The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas on October 7, 2023, when it led a devastating invasion of southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 hostages taken to Gaza.
The IDF has struck dozens of tall buildings in Gaza City in recent weeks, saying they were being used by Hamas as command posts and for surveillance, and some were rigged up with booby-traps.
On Monday, the military published a video showing troops locating an explosive device planted by Hamas in a high-rise building in the city.
According to the military, the bomb was found on the sixth floor of the tower using a drone. The booby trap was “neutralized,” and no soldiers were injured in the incident, the army said.
Israeli tanks, meanwhile, advanced to within a few hundred meters of Gaza City’s main Al Shifa Hospital, where doctors say hundreds of patients are still being treated despite Israeli orders to leave.
Health officials said tanks had also surrounded the area around nearby Al Helo hospital, housing 90 patients, including 12 babies in incubators. Medics said it was shelled overnight.
On Sunday, the IDF and Shin Bet announced that a Hamas Nukhba Force commander who led the killing and kidnapping of Israelis from a roadside bomb shelter near Kibbutz Re’im during the October 7, 2023, onslaught had been killed in a recent airstrike in the Gaza Strip.
According to the military, Hassan Mahmoud Hassan Hussein served as a Nukha company commander in Hamas’s Bureij Battalion.
Hussein, alongside another Nukhba force commander, Muhammad Abu Attawi, led the attack on a bomb shelter near Re’im where partygoers from the Nova festival had fled to.
Four people were taken hostage alive from the shelter and 16 were murdered. Seven managed to survive and were later rescued.
Hussein was also involved in attacks on troops during the war in Gaza, the IDF said.
Attawi, the other Nukba commander involved in the attack on the Re’im shelter, was killed in an Israeli strike in October 2024.
Also Sunday, Israeli troops operating in Gaza City killed a Hamas operative who attempted to plant a bomb next to an armored personnel carrier, the military said.
According to the IDF, the troops spotted the operative and opened fire on him as he tried to detonate the bomb against a Namer APC.
A short while later, an additional cell of Hamas gunmen was identified in the area, and the forces called in a drone strike that killed them, the army said.
The army issued footage showing the operative who was killed trying to approach the troops, and airstrikes directed by the forces.
The incident took place during operations of the 188th Armored Brigade and Bislamach Brigade — the IDF’s School for Infantry Corps Professions and Squad Commanders — under the 98th Division.