After lull, Israeli strikes in Gaza rise over last 90 days: IDF

JERUSALEM — Israel Defense Forces picked up the tempo of strikes in Gaza over the last three months, though the figures are dwarfed by operations in the opening weeks of the war.

Since the outbreak of the current conflict on Oct. 7, Israeli ground, air and naval forces have carried out approximately 37,000 on targets in Gaza, including what the IDF said were “more than 25,000 terrorist infrastructure and launch sites,” according to a new dataset released Tuesday.

In January, the IDF had reported 30,000 strikes in Gaza. But that figure had only risen to 2,000 by April, meaning that since an interim lull during Ramadan and Israel’s withdrawal from Khan Younis, the IDF has picked up the pace.

The 37,000 total strikes figure was included in an IDF update posted online on Tuesday, which also claimed that 14,000 “terrorists” had been eliminated or apprehended. “Among the eliminated terrorists are six brigade commanders, over 20 battalion commanders, and approximately 150 company commanders, the IDF said. On July 13 the IDF carried out airstrikes in southern Gaza’s Mawasi area targeting Hamas military commander Muhammed Deif and a brigade commander he was meeting with. The IDF said the brigade commander was killed, and is still assessing if Deif was also killed.

Israel launched the aggressive military campaign in response to the Oct. 7 attack, in which Hamas killed 1,200 mostly civilian Israelis and kidnapped scores of others. (The IDF has begun releasing the results of a series of investigations into security failures that day.)

The Health Ministry in Gaza, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians, has reported more than 38,000 deaths since the conflict’s start. Israel has come under increasing international pressure, including from the US, to better protect non-combatants.

The IDF said in its recent statement about the data that it has been focusing “efforts on locating terrorists who embed themselves and establish bases in sensitive sites across the Gaza Strip, including in hospitals, schools, and humanitarian shelters. These areas are cynically exploited by terrorists who attempt to use them as hiding places and bases for terrorism. Strikes against this infrastructure are conducted in accordance with international law, with the purpose of preventing the restoration of terrorist organizations’ capabilities.”

The release of the new strike data comes at a key point in the war. Israel’s Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant spoke with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on July 16 and met with US Central Command head General Michael Kurilla. Gallant said that “IDF operations in Gaza have led to the conditions necessary to achieve an agreement for the return of hostages, which is the highest moral imperative at this time.” Israel is also preparing to send out draft notices to ultra-Orthodox Israelis to bolster the IDF’s regular army which is based on conscription.

The recent IDF data is slightly different than the previous ones released on January 14 and April 6. The January data included thirteen categories of information from targets struck, to enlistment and humanitarian aid. The April data included eleven categories, combining two from January and eliminating the category of “medical treatment and equipment.” By contrast, the data the IDF released on July 16 is pared down to only information on the number of adversaries eliminated in Gaza and the number of targets struck. The northern Lebanon front is not included at all.

While Hamas fired 9,000 rockets in the first three months of the war, it only fired approximately 1,000 in the following three months of the war. The IDF didn’t provide an estimate for the months of May through July, but it appears the rocket fire has reduced to just a few launches a day, or less. Israeli apps that track the sirens and alerts caused by the fire generally show only a one or two a day on the border of Gaza.