Gaza
Israel Defense Forces blew up part of a terrorist tunnel dug under Israeli territory near the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis. While Palestinian media reported that five Islamic Jihad fighters and two Hamas members died in the passageway’s demolition, the Israeli government announced it had recovered bodies of an additional five terrorists, bringing the death toll to 12. An IDF statement also referred to the “advanced technology” that helped detect the tunnel, likely alluding to a $530 million, 37-mile underground concrete barrier that the Israeli government began constructing September last year.
Reports from Gaza suggest that Hamas transferred security responsibilities for the enclave’s border crossing with Egypt and Israel to the Palestinian Authority. The move is one of the initial steps outlined in a recent reconciliation agreement with the Fatah movement, in charge of the PA on the West Bank.
UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency serving and largely staffed by Palestinians, announced that it had found a tunnel built under a school in Gaza.
An assassination attempt wounded Hamas’ security chief in Gaza, Tawfeeq Abu Naeem, on October 27. A car bomb had been planted under Naeem’s car, according to a Hamas statement.
West Bank
Following PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ suspension of West Bank security cooperation last July, Israeli Channel 2 reported full coordination with Israeli forces resumed in late October.
Israeli Border Police released video footage showing a West Bank terror cell attempting to plant explosives near a fence northeast of Jerusalem on October 30. Security forces arrested three men during the incident.
Israeli authorities sealed off drainage pipes up to five feet in diameter under the West Bank security barrier near Hebron after reports of dozens of illegal crossing in recent weeks.
Golan Heights
Israeli police arrested seven members of the Druze community following a demonstration near the border with Syria that became unruly. The suspects, including two minors, are residents of the nearby villages of Majdal Shams and Ein Qiniya and had been protesting recent violence against the Druze community in Hader, Syria on November 3. During an attack, Sunni extremists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an al-Qaeda affiliate, detonated a car bomb in Hader, killing nine people. The IDF also made a rare statement that it was “prepared and ready to assist the residents of the village and prevent damage to or the capture of the village Hader.”
Arab media reported that Israeli warplanes bombed a weapons depot outside the city of Homs, near the border with Lebanon, on November 1. The Syrian military fired surface-to-air missiles from a base housing 72nd Division headquarters. The Israeli government maintains a policy of intercepting advance weapons shipments from Iran to Hezbollah in Syria.
Sinai
Egyptian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Mohamed Farid Hegazi made his first visit to Sinai since his appointment to lead the Egyptian armed forces on October 28. During his tour, Hegazi assessed checkpoints and military facilities in the area as well as praised the cooperation between the army and local police.
Egyptian security officials said a mortar attack in the North Sinai provincial capital of el-Arish killed four civilians on October 31.
