Five senior Hamas officials were reportedly eliminated in the surprise resumption of IDF strikes on Gaza overnight Monday – an operation that the IDF named as Operation Strength and Sword (עוז וחרב).

The IDF said that it carried out an extensive wave of airstrikes aimed at eliminating Hamas military commanders, political leaders, and terror infrastructure in the wake of reports that Hamas and Islamic Jihad took advantage of the “ceasefire” to rebuild its troops and military infrastructure and was actively planning attacks in Gaza border communities.

Meanwhile, defense officials have warned in recent weeks and days that Hamas has been actively recruiting tens of thousands of new terrorists and preparing for another invasion of Israel. Defense officials estimate that Hamas currently has a force of 25,000 terrorists and Islamic Jihad has a force of 5,000 terrorists.

According to a Channel 12 report on Sunday, defense officials have also identified a sharp increase of plans by Gazan terror groups to carry out attacks on Gaza border communities and IDF soldiers stationed in Gaza.

The most senior of the five Hamas officials killed in the attack was Issam al-Daalis, a former advisor to slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. According to a Ynet report, he has served as the head of governmental oversight in the Strip, a role similar to that of prime minister of Hamas, since it took control of the Strip in 2007. He was considered one of the leading administrative and organizational figures in Hamas and held an important position in managing civilian affairs and services in the Gaza Strip.

The other officials were named as Mahmoud Abu Watfa, the head of Hamas’ Interior Ministry; Abu Obeidah Al-Jamasi, a member of Hamas’s political bureau and the administrative head of the terror group; ; Ahmed Omar Al-Hatta, the director general of Hamas’s Justice Ministry; and Bahjat Abu Sultan, a senior official responsible for overseeing Hamas’s internal security apparatus.

Reports from Gaza on Tuesday morning indicated that about 300 people were killed in the strikes. However, Hamas’s statistics cannot be trusted as it regularly reports false numbers and does not differentiate between the deaths of armed terrorists and civilians

The renewed IDF operation in Gaza began after Hamas repeatedly stalled negotiations in Doha over the last two weeks, refusing to release additional hostages and rejecting all proposals it received from US envoy Steve Witkoff.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)