Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Dozens of terrorists killed in tunnels including Hamas leader Ibrahim Biari

By: Fern Sidman

As Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza continues in the fourth week of the war that Hamas terrorists launched on Israel, it was reported by Israel National News that on Tuesday that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fighter jets, acting on ISA (Shin Bet) intelligence, killed Ibrahim Biari, the Commander of Hamas’ Central Jabaliya Battalion. INN reported that Biari was one of the leaders responsible for sending “Nukbha” terrorist operatives to Israel to carry out the murderous terror attack on October 7th. Numerous Hamas terrorists were also hit in the strike at the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza.

Biari oversaw all military operations in the northern Gaza Strip since the IDF entered. As was indicated on the INN report, he was also responsible for sending the terrorists who carried out the 2004 terrorist attack in the Ashdod Port in which 13 Israelis were murdered, and was responsible for directing rocket fire at Israel, and advancing numerous attacks against the IDF, over the last two decades.

His elimination was carried out as part of a wide-scale strike on terrorists and terror infrastructure belonging to the Central Jabaliya Battalion, which had taken control over civilian buildings in Gaza City, according to the INN report. The strike damaged Hamas’ command and control in the area, as well as its ability to direct military activity against IDF soldiers operating throughout the Gaza Strip.

As a result of the strike, a large number of terrorists who were with Biari were also neutralized, as was reported by INN.  Underground terror infrastructure embedded beneath the buildings, used by the terrorists, also collapsed after the strike. INN reported that the IDF reiterated its call to the residents of the area to move south for their safety.

Also on Tuesday, INN reported that the names of two IDF soldiers who fell in battle against the Hamas terrorist organization in northern Gaza were cleared for publication.

Sergeant Roei Wolf, a 20-year-old resident of Ramat Gan, and Sergeant Lavi Lipshitz, a 20-year-old resident of Modi’in-Maccabim-Re’ut, were killed during battles on the ground against Hamas in northern Gaza, according to the INN report.

Both soldiers served in the Givati Brigade. They were killed by an RPG that was fired at the building in which the Givati soldiers were stationed at the time.

The IDF began ground operations in northern Gaza on Friday, nearly three weeks after Hamas terrorists massacred over 1,400 people in southern Israel.

The INN report also indicated that during the ground incursions into Gaza, Private Ori Megidish, an IDF soldier who was one of hundreds of people kidnapped by terrorists into Gaza on October 7, was successfully rescued from captivity.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that officials at Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital said more than 50 Palestinians were killed and 150 wounded when tons of IDF aerial explosives struck dwellings in the heart of the Jabalia refugee camp in urbanized north Gaza.

Israeli ground forces battled Hamas gunmen based in a sprawling underground tunnel network.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed international calls for a halt to the fighting to enable emergency aid deliveries to Gaza as evidence has surfaced that the Hamas terror organization is using the humanitarian aid supplies for their own purposes rather than the aid supplies being used by civilians in Gaza.

U.N. and other aid officials said Gaza’s civilians were engulfed by a public health catastrophe, with hospitals struggling to treat snowballing casualties as electricity supplies peter out, Reuters said.

Reuters also reported that there was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. It has accused Hamas of using civilian buildings as cover for fighters, commanders and weaponry.

Footage obtained by Reuters showed a swathe of destruction, with deep bomb craters and gutted, multi-story cement dwellings as people dug through mounds of rubble with their hands in search of those in the camp.

A Hamas statement said there were 400 dead and injured in Jabalia, which lies on Gaza City’s outskirts within the main northern ground zone of combat between dug-in Hamas terrorists and Israeli troops and tanks, according to the Reuters report, however, the news agency said that they could not independently verify the reported casualty figures.

The Rafah border crossing will be opened Wednesday for a number of Palestinians who were injured in Gaza to complete their treatment in Egyptian hospitals, Egyptian medical and security sources as well as a Palestinian border official said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed again on Tuesday for the protection of civilians caught in the conflict, stressing the need for proportional behavior and precaution by all parties.

“International humanitarian law establishes clear rules that cannot be ignored. It is not an a la carte menu and cannot be applied selectively,” Guterres said in a statement, as was reported by Reuters.

The tunnels under the cramped enclave are a prime objective for Israel as it expands a four-day-old ground offensive following three weeks of aerial bombardment into Gaza from the north to hit Hamas in retaliation for the Islamist terror group’s deadly surprise attack into southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which 1400 Israelis and others were barbarically massacred and over 5000 were injured.  The mass killing has been likened to a pogrom and it represented the largest number of Jews killed on a single day since the Holocaust.

Some of the 240 hostages that the Hamas terror group abducted that day are believed to be held in the tunnel complex, posing a further complication for the Israelis on top of the difficulties of fighting in an urban setting, the Reuters report said.  The majority of the hostages are Israeli citizens along with at least 10 Americans and other foreign nationals. Thus far, Hamas has released four women, two of whom are Americans.

INN reported on Tuesday that Mousa Abu Marzook, a senior Hamas official was interviewed by the Russian TV channel RT in Arabic and referred to the use of the tunnels by Hamas.

In the interview, he admitted that the tunnels were meant to protect Hamas members, according to the INN report. When asked who is responsible for the residents of Gaza, he replied that “the UN is supposed to provide protection.”

“We built the tunnels because there is no other way to protect ourselves from being targets and being killed. These tunnels are meant to protect us from the planes. We fight from them,” he said.

INN reported that he also said: “Everyone knows that 75% of the residents of the Gaza Strip are refugees – and it is the responsibility of the UN to protect them. The responsibility of the occupation is to provide them with all services as long as they are under occupation – in accordance with the Geneva Convention.”

Last week a Hamas delegation led by Mousa Abu Marzook landed in Moscow. Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that the delegation landed in Russia and referred to Hamas as a “Palestinian movement,” as was reported by INN.

Israel responded to the visit: “Hamas is a terrorist organization worse than ISIS. The hands of senior Hamas officials are covered in the blood of over 1,400 Israelis who were slaughtered, murdered, executed, and burned, and they are responsible for the kidnapping of over 220 Israelis, including babies, children, women, and the elderly.”

In an update, the Israeli military said its force had struck about 300 targets over the past day, including anti-tank missile and rocket launch posts below tunnel shafts, as well as underground Hamas military compounds, as was indicated in the Reuters report.

Hamas terrorists responded with anti-tank missiles and machine gun fire, it said. A number of Hamas members were killed, it said, without specifying a number, according to the Reuters report.

The Israeli military has repeatedly called for civilians to evacuate north Gaza southwards to avoid the main focus of its strikes during the ground offensive. Reuters reported that hundreds of thousands have left the area but many have hung on, residents say, for fear of permanent displacement.

“The north is at the moment, at least we hope, as clean as possible of non-combatants because that is the goal we have set for ourselves, to know how to deal primarily with terrorists and not harm non-combatants,” Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi told a televised briefing in Jerusalem on Tuesday, as was noted in the Reuters report.

Hanegbi added, “But the south’s turn will come, the centre’s turn will come… As we have mentioned, this is a long battle.”

The al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said they clashed early on Tuesday with Israeli forces invading Gaza’s south, hitting four Israeli vehicles with rockets, the Reuters report said.

Later, it said fighters ambushed Israeli armored vehicles penetrating the central Jur al-Dik area of Gaza and destroyed three of them with al Yassin 105mm shells, before withdrawing safely to avoid an Israeli mortar barrage. Israel’s military had no immediate comment on Hamas’ accounts, according to the Reuters report.

Also on Tuesday, Reuters reported that air raid sirens sounded in the area of Israel’s far southern resort city of Eilat on the Red Sea and the Israeli military said it downed an approaching “aerial target”.

Over 1,000 miles south of Gaza, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis said they had launched a “large number” of ballistic missiles and drones towards Israel in support of the Hamas terrorists which makes this their third operation targeting Israel, with more to come, Reuters reported.

The Associated Press reported that earlier this month, a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Red Sea intercepted three cruise missiles and several drones launched toward Israel by the Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen, including its capital, Sanaa. Mysterious projectiles have also struck inside Egypt, near the Israeli border.

Iran has long denied arming the Houthis even as it has been transferring rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, missiles and other weaponry to the Yemeni militia using sea routes, according to the AP report. Independent experts, Western nations and United Nations experts have traced components seized aboard other detained vessels back to Iran.

A U.N. arms embargo has prohibited weapons transfers to the Houthis since 2014, when Yemen’s civil war erupted, the AP report said.

Their statement from the Houthis confirmed the widening specter of spillover from Gaza’s conflict that has unnerved states including Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, the report added.

In related developments, i24News.com reported on Tuesday that the IDF operated on multiple fronts overnight Monday to Tuesday, confirming it hit military targets belonging to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization in Lebanon after attacks on northern Israeli areas.

In addition, the IDF demolished the house of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri, located in the Ramallah region of Judea and Samaria, although the terrorist organization’s number two leader resides primarily in Turkey and Lebanon, according to the i24News.com report.

In the southern part of Israel, i24News reported that multiple rocket sirens were heard overnight, particularly in Ashkelon and Gaza border communities. There was also an infiltration attempt near the Re’im intersection, during which the IDF attempted to arrest the suspect, but were required to shoot, resulting in the death of the infiltrator, the i24News report indicated.

Meanwhile, back in the United States, it was reported by INN on Tuesday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken was heckled and interrupted multiple times by anti-Israel protestors during his remarks before the Senate Appropriations Committee today that is considering a multi-billion dollar aid deal to Israel and to Ukraine.

As soon as the Secretary Blinken began addressing the committee, a white-haired man began shouting about Israel’s retaliation against Hamas for the massacre of over 1,400 Israelis on October 7, the INN report said. The activist shouted “save the children of Gaza” and accused Israel of “genocide.”

The report on the INN web site also indicated that after the first activist was removed from the hearing room, a second activist from the radical ‘Code Pink’ organization began shouting that “the US is supporting a brutal massacre” while holding a sign demanding an end to American financial assistance to Israel.

More activists held up hands painted red to symbolize blood on the hands of the US and Israel.

Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told the activists: “I do recognize that people feel passionately, but I do ask that we have order in this hearing room and respect our speakers,” as was noted in the INN report.

Blinken was interrupted a total of six times. INN reported that at one point, multiple activists began shouting repeatedly: “From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go.”

One protestor screeched that the Secretary “has blood on your hands! Murderer!”

According to the INN report, in his remarks, Secretary Blinken warned that if Israel was forced into a ceasefire now, Hamas would have the opportunity to commit similar atrocities that were evidenced in the sadistic massacre that they committed on October 7.

Earlier Tuesday, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray warned the Senate committee that the US now faces the greatest terrorist threat since the heyday of ISIS in the aftermath of Hamas’ massacre, as was noted in the INN report.

“The reality is that the terrorism threat has been elevated throughout 2023, but the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole other level,” Wray said.

“We assess that the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration the likes of which we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate several years ago,” he explained, according to the INN report.

When questioned by Senator Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) about increased harassment of Jews and incidents of blatant anti-Semitism on the rise on the US, Wray said, “In part, as you know all too well, the Jewish community is targeted by extremists across the spectrum. This is a threat that is reaching in some ways sort of historic levels,” as was reported by the Washington Post.

Wray noted that one particularly disturbing element of the threats made against Jewish people is that many types of extremists, from the far left to the far right, exhibit strains of anti-Semitism, according to the Washington Post report. While Jewish people make up about 2.4 percent of the U.S. population, threats to Jewish people account for roughly 60 percent of religion-based hate crimes.

In an interview with The Washington Post last week, the FBI’s assistant director of partner engagement, Robert J. Contee III, said the agency is intensifying its information-sharing “and making sure that things don’t slip through the cracks,” as was indicated in the Washington Post report.

On Friday, Contee and other top FBI officials spoke by phone with more than 2,400 local police department heads — including leaders of university police forces — to urge them to take each reported threat seriously.

“This is really an exercise in making sure that, if there are dots out there, that we are able to draw the line between those two dots by convening something where our partners have a chance to hear about the landscape,” he said in the interview, according to the Washington Post report.  “It is front and center on the minds of folks to just ensure the safety of communities all across America.”