The IDF demolished 56 buildings in Gaza’s Shijaiyah neighborhood, where intense clashes with terrorist forces have taken place in recent weeks, claiming the lives of dozens of soldiers.
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In recent days, the military continues its operations in the eastern part of Gaza City, following Tuesday’s announcement that the IDF had gained control of Jabaliya, located 4 kilometers north of Gaza City, where prolonged and significant bombardments by the Israeli Air Force took place. Some of the most intense battles took place in Shijaiyah during the ongoing war as well as during Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
The danger in the area came to light during this war, especially following a clash with terrorists who ambushed the troops in which nine IDF soldiers were killed, including Lt. Col. Tomer Grinberg and Col. Itzhak Ben Basat.
On Monday, the IDF announced that Golani Brigade soldiers operating in the neighborhood seized Palestine Square and destroyed it alongside the statue erected in it, commemorating the battle during Operation Protective Edge in which an armored vehicle of the Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion got stuck and targeted by terrorists, leading to the death of six soldiers and the abduction of Oron Shaul’s body, which still remains in Gaza.
The statue in the center of the square depicts a fist emerging from an armored vehicle, with three dog tags on it, one of which bears Oron Shaul’s name. "We, the Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion, are in a place where the Hamas terrorist organization erected a statue glorifying the tragedy that befell the brigade in Operation Protective Edge. We’re sending a clear message to Hamas: 'We will arrive and destroy anywhere in which such a statue is erected'," the 13th Battalion’s commander said following the operation.
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Nine Golani Brigade soliders killed in ambush in Shijaiyah
(Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
Inside the Gazan neighborhood known in the IDF as a “hornet’s nest,” soldiers located numerous rocket launchers and tunnel shafts, eliminated hundreds of terrorists, and located military intelligence inside homes.
Since the beginning of the war, soldiers encountered dozens of terrorist cells armed with explosives, RPG rocket launchers and handguns who clashed with the forces, often from civilian homes, some of which were inhabited by Gazans including women and children. The fighting in the neighborhood mostly involved close combat between Golani soldiers and Hamas terrorists.