T he Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Sunday that they have uncovered an unusually large tunnel along the Gaza-Egypt border, capable of accommodating vehicles. This discovery is part of ongoing efforts to identify and neutralize Hamas’s arms-smuggling routes in the area.
The tunnel, measuring around three meters (10 feet) in height, was found last week along the Philadelphi Route. Combat engineers are currently investigating the tunnel before its planned demolition. The IDF has previously discovered dozens of tunnels along this corridor, including at least 25 that extended into Egypt.
This tunnel's discovery coincides with ongoing violence in Gaza’s south and center. On Sunday, at least five rockets were fired from the southern Gaza Strip, triggering sirens in towns near Ashdod for the first time in months. The Iron Dome intercepted some rockets, while others impacted open areas, with one hitting the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council. No injuries were reported, though a fire near the town of Bitzaron was ignited by one of the rockets.
Following these attacks, the IDF urged Palestinians in certain Khan Younis neighborhoods to evacuate to designated “humanitarian zones,” as they prepare to intensify operations against terror groups in the area. Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, highlighted the need for evacuation to minimize civilian casualties during forthcoming military actions.
Additionally, the IDF reported that a drone strike in central Gaza’s Nuseirat killed Ismail Nofal, a Hamas operative involved in the October 7 attacks and subsequent rocket fire on Israel. Nofal was the son of Ayman Nofal, a former commander of Hamas’s Central Gaza Brigade, killed by Israel in October.
The IDF also conducted airstrikes on Hamas operatives in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood. These operatives were using the Hassan Salama and Nasr schools as command and control centers for planning and executing attacks on IDF troops and Israel. The military employed precision munitions and aerial surveillance to minimize harm to civilians.
Despite these measures, Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency reported that the strikes on the schools resulted in the deaths of at least 25 people, mostly women and children, and injured 50 others. These figures, however, could not be independently verified.
Elsewhere, an overnight Israeli strike killed at least five people in a tent area within the Al-Aqsa Hospital compound in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah. Another Israeli missile strike in Deir el-Balah killed three Palestinians in a house, while separate strikes in Jabaliya camp and northern Gaza City resulted in the deaths of eight people in a home and three in a car, respectively.
Over the past day, the IDF conducted more than 50 strikes in Gaza, targeting gunmen cells, buildings used by terror groups, observation posts, and other infrastructure.
The current conflict began on October 7, when Hamas-led terrorists launched a large-scale attack on southern Israel, killing nearly 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claims that over 39,000 people in Gaza have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting, though these figures have not been independently verified. Israel reports that approximately 15,000 combatants have been killed in battle, along with around 1,000 terrorists killed inside Israel during the initial October 7 attack.
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