{"id":605472,"date":"2026-09-04T09:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T09:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/605472\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T09:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T09:08:12","slug":"following-idf-strikes-in-gaza-officials-worry-about-hamas-retaliation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/605472\/","title":{"rendered":"Following IDF strikes in Gaza, officials worry about Hamas retaliation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Concern is mounting within the IDF Southern Command that commanders in Hamas\u2019s military wing could carry out a guerrilla operation against IDF outposts or patrols along the Yellow Line in response to a series of targeted strikes and the capture of a senior Hamas official earlier this week<\/a>, sources told Walla on Thursday.
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Southern Command officials are also not ruling out rocket fire toward Israel as an attempt by Hamas to demonstrate its strength. The sources said the assessment is that Hamas prefers the US not to allow the IDF to conduct deep operations in the strip and therefore may seek to use the period before elections in Israel and the US to respond to recent developments.<\/p>\n

Ahead of Rosh Hashanah<\/a> next weekend, a situational assessment will be held to examine the possibility of a targeted reinforcement of forces in the Gaza Strip. The move could include sending messages to Hamas that any activity against IDF troops or the Israeli home front would lead to an unusual IDF response.<\/p>\n

The defense establishment has declined to comment on the arrest of the head of Hamas\u2019s internal security apparatus, but officials said he is a key figure in understanding the organization\u2019s behind-the-scenes activities. According to the officials, his interrogation could help answer critical questions regarding operational plans, protected individuals, methods and tactics, and field commanders who were recently appointed to sensitive positions.<\/p>\n

On the same day as the arrest, the IDF raised its alert level over concerns of a possible Hamas response. Diplomatic officials conveyed messages through mediators that if Gaza-based forces carried out an attack against IDF soldiers or Israeli civilians following the arrest, Israel\u2019s response would be severe.<\/p>\n

The arrest operation was carried out in cooperation with the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and a Gazan Palestinian anti-Hamas militia. IDF and Shin Bet Special Forces entered the al-Shati refugee camp area in the Gaza Strip using vehicles. According to Palestinian reports, Hamas operatives detected the force and a firefight broke out, during which the force was extracted from both the ground and the air. Based on those claims, no arrest was carried out.<\/p>\n

However, according to Defense Minister Israel Katz<\/a>\u2019s statement released after the operation, the arrest did take place. \u201cWe do not wait for threats, but rather pursue Hamas terrorists, eliminate them and destroy their terror infrastructure,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Concern is mounting within the IDF Southern Command that commanders in Hamas\u2019s military wing could carry out a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50,69,51,1031,85,268472,46,2723,43,71792,74149],"class_list":["post-605472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-gaza","tag-gaza-strip","tag-hamas","tag-idf","tag-il","tag-incendiary-kites","tag-israel","tag-israel-katz","tag-news","tag-southern-command","tag-yellow-line"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}