Latest Military Developments Of Gaza And Northern Palestine, 26 October 2023

On the 20th day of the fighting, in the early hours of Thursday, the Israeli regime army entered the Gaza Strip with a number of tanks and armored and engineering vehicles, and after a few hours of fighting and light skirmishes, it withdrew from the area again.

Although the western media first announced the beginning of a large operation, but with the release of subsequent videos, it became clear that this attack was a limited operation. According to the published video, several Puma armored-engineering vehicles, Israeli caterpillar D9 armored-bulldozers and several Merkava tanks passed through the fences of the Gaza Strip and created an embankment and built new routes around the fences, and the Merkava tanks provided support fire.

There are two possibilities for this movement: the Israeli regime is preparing the environment for the start of military operations and building new routes and access points into the Gaza Strip. And at the same time, while achieving this goal, by conducting limited operations, it seeks to test the lines and identify the weak and strong points of the Palestinian resistance groups, as well as measure the type and intensity of the response by the Palestinian fighters. The Palestinian fighters also avoided all-out defense against this attack, being aware of this issue.

It is worth mentioning that in the last hours of Thursday, heavy clashes between the Palestinian and Israeli forces were reported near the border of the Gaza Strip, in the east of El Bureij and in the east of Gaza City. So far, there has been no ground advance and the areas are being bombarded by Israeli helicopters and fighter jets.

Following the Palestinian rocket attacks on the occupied territories, the areas surrounding the Gaza Strip and further away areas were targeted by rocket attacks on several occasions.

In the northern front, clashes continued in the form of artillery, missile and rocket attacks as in the past days. Hezbollah targeted the positions of the Israeli occupying forces with artillery and anti-armor missiles on several occasions. The army of the Israeli regime also targeted the villages and border areas of southern Lebanon on several occasions using artillery and fighter jets. The Israeli army uses incendiary and phosphorous bombs to target the southern regions of Lebanon.

On Thursday morning, an Israeli army drone crashed in Maalot Tarshiha area in the north of occupied Palestine for an unknown reason. The fall of this drone destroyed the balcony of a house and injured seven Zionist settlers.

Hezbollah also announced the names of three more of its forces who were martyred in the recent battles.

Regarding the number of war casualties, the Ministry of Health of Palestine announced that the number of martyrs in Gaza has increased to more than 7028 and the number of injured has reached more than 18,000.

Read more: Latest Military Developments Of Gaza And Palestine, 25 October 2023