The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it carried out several targeted airstrikes on Hamas and members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Gaza and Lebanon on July 18. The precision strikes reflect the IDF’s current posture on both fronts, as Israeli ground forces mostly sit on the sidelines while the air force increases pressure from the air. The IDF continues to control the Netzarim Corridor across central Gaza and the Philadelphi Corridor along the border of Gaza and Egypt.
The IDF said on July 18 that it eliminated 20 members of Hamas’s Shati Battalion in a drone strike in northern Gaza. The IDF didn’t provide a time frame of when this happened, but it appears to have been over the week of July 11–18. The Shati Battalion is linked to Shati camp, an urban area near the beach in northern Gaza based around a historic refugee camp. The Shati Battalion was badly damaged in fighting in November and December 2023, when the IDF first entered Gaza with ground forces. However, it has apparently reconstituted itself in some form, as other Hamas units have in northern Gaza.
The IDF said that “Muhammed Abu Jattab, a platoon commander and sniper in the Al-Shati battalion, was eliminated in the strike. Throughout the war, he carried out numerous sniper attacks against IDF troops in the Gaza Strip, including the incident on July 9 where Sergeant First Class Tal Lahat was killed during a targeted raid to dismantle terror infrastructure at the UNRWA Center in Gaza City.” Another Hamas member who played a role in the October 7 attack was also killed in one of the strikes.
In another incident, the IDF targeted what it said were “Islamic Jihad’s Naval Forces in Gaza City and an additional terrorist who participated in the October 7th Massacre.” The target of one strike was Anas Murad, the head of PIJ’s naval forces. After nine months of war, it’s not clear what naval forces remain to Hamas and PIJ. It appears that most of them have been destroyed, and the remaining naval members have focused their efforts on land over recent months. Hamas used some frogmen and attackers in small boats during its October 7 attack. The group also tried several infiltrations from the water in October, but its naval forces appear to have been heavily damaged afterward.
The precision strikes on individuals have also extended deep inside Lebanon. An IDF airstrike killed Hamas member Muhammed Jabara. Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya in Lebanon also claimed Jabara was a member. He was killed in an airstrike targeting a road in Qaraoun, a town that overlooks a lake with the same name, around 25 miles north of the Israeli border. The IDF accused Jabara of being involved in rocket attacks from Lebanon. Hamas has sought to increase its footprint in that country and its capabilities so that the group can launch rockets and attacks from both Lebanon and Gaza as part of a multi-front war.
“[Jabara’s] elimination diminishes the capabilities of the Hamas terrorist organization to plan and carry out attacks against the State of Israel in the area of the northern border,” the IDF said. The IDF also targeted a Hezbollah member named Hassan Muhanna in a strike on July 18, adding to the pattern of these operations carried out in recent days.
Sirens sounded repeatedly in the Israeli community of Nir Am on July 18. Usually, these alerts indicate rocket fire or other types of threats. However, the IDF said that three of the incidents were false alarms.
The only threat the IDF noted in Gaza on July 18 was a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) fired at IDF troops near a humanitarian route that the IDF did not specify. There are several humanitarian routes in Gaza, including Rashid Road, which runs along the coast of Gaza. Another route runs from the Kerem Shalom border crossing into Gaza.
The IDF reported that the RPG wounded an Israeli soldier. “Following the attack, the humanitarian route was temporarily closed. A few hours later, coordination and distribution of aid on the humanitarian route resumed,” according to the IDF.
