Summary of Events as of 17:30  5 January 2009

IAF planes have recently targeted dozens of tunnels used by the Hamas terror organization, located along the Rafah border. The Hamas tunnel network is used for the smuggling of weapons, for the movement of Hamas terror operatives from the Gaza Strip and back, and is an integral part of the operations in which Hamas purchases and is supplied with weaponry. During the operation, IDF forces hit dozens of terror operatives.

The aerial and artillery forces also assisted the Ground Forces by attacking armed gunmen approaching the Ground Forces and striking launching areas from which Hamas fired rockets at the IDF and at Israeli civilians.

In addition, the IAF attacked over forty additional targets throughout the Gaza Strip.These targets included a tunnel rigged with explosives, a number of weaponry storage facilities, among them houses of Hamas terror operatives– one of which housed an underground tunnel, a number of weapons manufacturing sites, rocket launching areas, and a rocket launcher itself.

Also today (Jan.4), 80 trucks with humanitarian aid were transferred into the Gaza Strip via the Kerem Shalom crossing.

More than 30 rockets have been launched at Israel since this morning, landing in heavily populated areas and damaging a number of structures, including a kindergarten in Ashdod, which was closed at the time by the Home Front Command due to the rocket attacks perpetrated over the past week by Hamas.

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5 Jan. 2009 - IDF Spokesperson Capt. Benjamin Rutland reports on the second day of ground operations in Operation Cast Lead, including the capture of a number of Hamas terrorists by Israeli forces.

video courtesy IDF Spokesperson

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Summary of Overnight Activity  4/5 January 2009

The IDF operation continued overnight with many infantry, tank, engineering, artillery and intelligence forces operating throughout the Gaza Strip in conjunction with the Israel Air Force and the Israel Navy.

IAF aircraft struck over 30 targets including:

• A mosque used to store mass amounts of weaponry
• An underground bunker in the area of Gaza city. The attack caused secondary explosions indicating there were explosives inside. Tunnels in the area collapsed.
• A number of smuggling tunnels, near Rafah, used by the Hamas terror organization as passages for terrorists in and out of the Gaza Strip and that formed part of the purchasing and supply system of the organization
• 4 houses of Hamas operatives used to store weaponry
• A rocket launcher
• A suspected anti-aircraft missile launcher

Israel Navy boats assisted the ground forces and attacked a number of targets including rocket launching sites, a bunker and Hamas naval outposts.

An IDF officer and five IDF soldiers were lightly to moderately wounded in two separate incidents of gunfire exchanges in the northern Gaza Strip.

The IDF will continue to operate against Hamas terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip according to plans in order to reduce the rocket fire on the south of Israel.

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