Seven Palestinian terrorists were killed in several incidents in the Gaza Strip.
A top Islamic Jihad man, Muhammad Abu Abdullah, also known as Abu Murshud, was killed in an air strike late Thursday evening.
An IDF spokesman said Abdullah was a senior operative in charge of manufacturing Kassam rockets and explosives. The operation was carried out with the assistance of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), he added.
According to Palestinian sources, IAF aircraft fired several missiles toward the car in which Abdullah and other gunmen were traveling. The sources said that two other Palestinians were killed in the air strike and several others were wounded.
In another operation Thursday overnight, an IAF aircraft killed a Hamas gunman near the southern Gaza Strip security fence.
Palestinian sources said five others were wounded in the attack.
During earlier operations in Gaza earlier in the day, the IDF killed five members of Palestinian terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip in air strikes and fire exchanges.
Two Islamic Jihad men were killed in an IAF strike on their car in the early evening, Palestinian officials said. The military said it targeted a car filled with explosives on the way to an attack.
Earlier, the IDF killed three Palestinian gunmen in an exchange of fire and an air strike in the southern Gaza Strip, the army reported. Palestinians said the dead were members of Hamas.
Nine people were wounded, including four civilians, Palestinians reported, claiming that among the wounded was a 13-year-old boy. None of the injuries were life threatening, officials said.
The Palestine Center for Human Rights counts 1 Gaza civilian death from December 13-26 out of 23 total killed by the IDF. In their detailed report I could not find the name nor circumstances of that supposed civilian death. In fact, when I added up their 23 deaths I didn't find any civilian, unless you count a "police officer" as a civilian. PCHR likes to add the appearance of Israel shooting randomly at civilians with lines like "At approximately 20:30 on Monday, 17 December 2007, an IOF aircraft fired a missile at civilian car (a white Skoda), in which the commander of the al-Quds Brigades (the armed wing of Islamic Jihad) and his bodyguard were traveling, in al-Nasser Street in the north of Gaza City. The missile hit the car and killed the two occupants."IDF troops killed one of former PA prime minister Ahmed Qurei's bodyguards, the military said Friday morning.
Palestinian sources reported that IDF troops operating south of Ramallah in the town of Bituniya shot and killed Muatassem a-Shariff, a Fatah operative and a Presidential Guard member. Eye witnesses said a-Shariff was shot while after opening fire while trying to escape IDF troops who came to his house in order to arrest him.
According to PCHR's own very biased reports and counting the deaths from today, the IDF has managed to kill 54 terrorists since November 29 - and only 6 civilians. And this source tries as hard as it can to classify victims as "civilians" even if they do a clearly aggressive act, so chances are the ratio is even more impressive. (One of the victims from early December was "shooting birds." The December 6th report mentions one civilian that I could not find in their detailed report either.)
Arabic news sources have been buzzing about Hamas' discovery of "collaborators" in Hamas itself - including at least one prominent member - that help the IDF identify and eliminate terrorists. It looks like the IDF and Shin Bet have been doing a good job on Gaza intelligence lately, although it has been much harder since Israel abandoned Gaza.