On 16th November thursday, Israeli forces took control of the Port of Gaza, a key Hamas base in Gaza City. 

In a combined operation by naval, armoured and engineering forces along with air force support, about 10 tunnel shafts were destroyed and four buildings of associated terrorist infrastructure were destroyed, the IDF said. 

Hamas used the anchorage as a training facility for its naval forces to direct and carry out attacks, the IDF said. Under the cover of a civilian naval anchorage, Hamas took advantage of the facility to train and carry out attacks, using civilian vessels and Gaza’s naval police boats. Israeli forces killed 10 terrorists and cleared all the buildings in the area of the anchorage. 

In addition, a monument glorifying the Mavi Marmara protest flotilla of 2010 was toppled. Some of the naval commandos in the Israel Navy’s Flotilla 13 who were involved in seizing the anchorage also fought aboard the Mavi Marmara. 

In 2010, the Israel Navy intercepted a six-ship flotilla trying to break the Gaza blockade. Violent clashes broke out aboard the Mavi Marmara, the flotilla’s largest ship when protesters attacked Israel Navy commandos. Ten Turkish Islamists, many of whom were armed, were killed. Ankara downgraded its ties with Israel over the affair. 

On a number of occasions, since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, the Israel Navy disrupted attempts to smuggle Iranian weapons into the Strip. 

In the same rage, Israel Air Force fighter jets struck the home of Hamas politburo head Ismail Haniyeh in the Gaza Strip overnight as Israeli forces continued their operations in the enclave. 

The residence “was used as terrorist infrastructure and often served as a meeting point for Hamas’s senior leaders to direct terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers,” the army said. 

Image Source: The Times of Israel