The Israel Defense Forces said Friday it had expanded its ground operations in the northern Gaza Strip, targeting the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, while confirming it killed a senior Hamas commander in an overnight airstrike in the Lebanese coastal city of Sidon.
The military said the intensified offensive aims to deepen Israel's security buffer near the border and dismantle remaining Hamas infrastructure. "The terrorist was involved in advancing terror attacks against the State of Israel in recent months, and his activities constituted a threat to the State of Israel and its citizens," the IDF said, referring to Hassan Farhat, who was killed in the Lebanon strike.
Farhat, who led Hamas operations in western Lebanon, was responsible for coordinating a February rocket attack on Israel's Northern Command base in Safed that killed Staff Sgt. Omer Sarah Benjo and wounded additional Israeli troops. The airstrike destroyed the top floor of an apartment building in Sidon, according to video footage from the scene.
In Gaza, the IDF said troops from the 401st Armored Brigade directed drone strikes that killed a deputy commander of a Hamas Nukhba force and several other operatives. The brigade also dismantled rocket launchers and a Hamas command center in Shejaiya, where evacuation orders were issued Thursday.
The renewed campaign comes amid escalating violence in Gaza and southern Lebanon, following the collapse of a ceasefire with Hamas on March 18. The war, which began with Hamas-led attacks on October 7 that killed 1,200 Israelis and led to the abduction of 251 hostages, has reentered a phase of full-scale combat.
The IDF said it is facilitating civilian evacuation from Shejaiya, though hundreds of Palestinians have been seen fleeing on foot, carrying personal belongings or using donkey carts. "The situation is very dangerous, and there is death coming at us from every direction," Elena Halas told AFP via text message from Shejaiya, where she said her family was trapped.
Gaza's civil defense agency said at least 30 people had been killed in the territory since dawn on Friday, including 25 in a single Israeli airstrike on Khan Yunis, according to a medical source at Nasser Hospital. The numbers could not be independently verified.
Hamas-controlled health authorities said Thursday that 1,163 Palestinians have died since Israel resumed large-scale strikes last month, bringing the overall death toll in Gaza to 50,523 since the war began. The figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants. Israel claims it has killed at least 20,000 Hamas fighters and 1,600 attackers during the October 7 assault.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this week that Israel would establish a new security corridor that would effectively isolate Rafah. IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin described the current campaign as a "new stage" intended to "return the hostages and destroy Hamas's military and governing capabilities."
The IDF says Hamas continues to use civilians as shields and embeds fighters in civilian areas, a claim the group denies. On Thursday, more than 100 people were reportedly killed in Israeli airstrikes, including 27 inside a school, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry. The military said the building was used as a Hamas command center.
