The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Friday that troops have carried out raids in Gaza during the past 24 hours to “eliminate the threat of terrorists” and locate the roughly 150 hostages who were taken by the Palestinian militant group Hamas last weekend.
IDF officials wrote in a Telegram post that soldiers have searched for and collected evidence about the hostage locations.
“In addition, IDF soldiers thwarted terrorist cells and infrastructure located in the area, including a Hamas cell that fired anti-tank missiles toward Israeli territory,” they wrote.
The announcement comes just hours after Israel called for more than 1 million Palestinians to flee Gaza as a ground invasion appears imminent.
Israel has declared war on Hamas after more than a thousand militants surged across the border last Saturday and killed at least 1,400 people, including children, and snatched hostages.
Since Israel’s stated goal is to eradicate Hamas, it will need to enter into Gaza, the coastal strip where the group is deeply embedded, in what would be the largest operation there since 2014.
But the mission will be risky, as Hamas operates from a warren of underground tunnels and is scattered throughout the Palestinian population. Many of them are also individual actors involved in subgroups or separate factions within Hamas.
Israel has called up some 300,000 reservists for the war and is conducting large scale bombing strikes on Gaza, which has killed more than 1,500 Palestinians so far.