Israel’s military believes it has inflicted “significant” damage on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror group, destroying infrastructure, including a tunnel to Israel described as a “flagship” project, and eliminating its top leadership, the army said on Tuesday.
Israel and Islamic Jihad halted three days of intense fighting on Sunday that saw hundreds of rockets fired at Israeli cities and intense airstrikes over the Gaza Strip. According to Hamas authorities in Gaza, dozens of Palestinians have been killed in the spate of violence, although Israel has blamed many of those deaths on accidental fire by Palestinian fighters.
In a briefing concluding the 66-hour Operation Dawn, the Israel Defense Forces said it had “significantly damaged the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and its leadership”.
The army launched the first airstrikes following indications of an impending PIJ anti-tank guided missile attack against Israeli civilians or soldiers on the border. These strikes killed the PIJ commander in northern Gaza, Taysir Jabari.
According to new details revealed by the IDF on Tuesday, the IDF used small glide bombs to hit Jabari’s apartment on the sixth floor of the 14-story tower in Gaza City.
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The munitions entered the seventh-floor wall at an angle, penetrated the sixth-floor ceiling and only then detonated to minimize collateral damage, senior officers said.
Troops load missiles on a fighter jet during Operation Dawn, in an image released by the military on Aug. 9, 2022. (Israel Defense Forces)
In another major airstrike on the second night of the operation, the PIJ commander in southern Gaza, Khaled Mansour, was killed.
IS repeatedly delayed the strike against Mansour because his apartment was near a children’s playground. The military released a video of itself calling off the strike in an attempt to show its efforts to avoid harming civilians even when faced with the possibility of hitting a top-level target.
Read more: Operation Breaking Dawn was a tactical success, but it won’t be the last round of the battle
The Israel Defense Forces struck 170 targets using fighter jets, armed drones, attack helicopters and artillery, according to the briefing.
The targets included 17 observation posts (six of which were manned by PIJ operatives), 45 missile and mortar sites, eight military camps, eight weapons caches, six weapons production facilities, three targets associated with PIJ naval forces, and “attack tunnel.”
In total, 1,175 rockets and mortars were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel during the three days. The Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted more than 380 projectiles fired at populated areas, with an unprecedented 97 percent success rate, the IDF said.
Iron Dome fires a rocket to intercept an incoming projectile near the border with the Gaza Strip during Operation Dawn, in an image released by the military on August 9, 2022. (Israel Defense Forces)
The May 2021 conflict saw a 94 percent interception ratio, up from 89 percent in the 2014 war and 86 percent in 2012, according to military data. The high interception rate is due to improvements in the defense system as well as the limited firepower of the PIJ.
Several missiles managed to evade the system and land in populated areas, causing some damage to homes and civilian infrastructure, as well as slightly injuring at least four people, including two soldiers. Dozens more people were treated for injuries sustained while running for shelters and anxiety.
Rockets fired by Palestinian terrorists at Israel, in Gaza City, August 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
The IDF was still struggling to prevent rocket fire against Israel, with officers saying they hit only 10 units that were about to launch an attack or had just fired rockets.
The military said it had focused much of its airstrike effort on missile storage and production sites to push the PIJ back before the next potential conflict. The IDF believed these strikes would make it “significantly more difficult” for the PIJ to rearm, but some officials say it already has thousands more missiles ready.
An F-35 fighter jet is seen during Operation Breaking Dawn, in an image released by the military on Aug. 9, 2022. (Israel Defense Forces)
According to the IDF, about 200 rockets fired at Israel failed to land inside the Gaza Strip. In several cases, failed rocket launches killed Palestinian civilians. According to military estimates, at least 16 non-participating Palestinians have been killed in such incidents, some of them children.
The IDF said the most important target of the operation was an attack tunnel hit early Sunday. The military said the tunnel, built several meters underground from the southern Gaza town of Rafah, was to be used to “enter and surprise attack Israel.” The IDF said the tunnel did not pass through Israeli territory because Israel has a high-tech underground wall that guards its border with Gaza from attack tunnels that once threatened southern cities.
The tunnel was Mansour’s “flagship” project, according to a senior IDF officer.
Supporters of the Palestinian terrorist group Islamic Jihad march with placards depicting senior commanders Khaled Mansour (left) and Taysir Jabari, who were killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip, during a rally in the Lebanese Burj al-Barain refugee camp on August 7 , 2022. (Anwar Amro/AFP)
Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip said 45 people were killed in the fighting, including 16 children, but did not say how many of the total killed were linked to terrorist groups. At least 15 deaths were claimed by members of the PIJ, Hamas and another, smaller, terrorist group.
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