Israel strikes Hamas training camp deep inside Lebanon, 13 people said killed

The Israeli Air Force conducted a rare strike on a Hamas facility in the Ain al-Hilweh camp near Sidon in Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces announced Tuesday evening.

“The IDF struck terrorists who operated in a Hamas training compound,” the military stated, adding the site “was used by Hamas terrorists for training and exercises in order to plan and carry out terrorist attacks against IDF troops and the State of Israel.”

According to Lebanese reports, 13 people were killed in the strike. The IDF emphasized that “prior to the strike, steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians, including the use of precise munition, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence.”

Channel 12 News cited a security official saying that “all those killed are Hamas operatives, some under the age of 20. They were training in preparation for a special operation.”

The IDF confirms carrying out an airstrike in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near the Lebanese coastal city of Sidon this evening, saying it targeted terror operatives at a Hamas training facility.

The Lebanese health ministry says four people were killed in the… https://t.co/F2ZKWgGymc pic.twitter.com/PSTFbDMbpW

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Footage the military released after the strike showed that, contrary to prior Lebanese reports, the nearby Khalid bin al-Walid mosque wasn’t the target of the strike. Instead, a building some 60 meters from the mosque was hit.

“The IDF is operating against Hamas' establishment in Lebanon, and will continue to operate against Hamas terrorists wherever they operate.”

Hamas called the strike “a horrific massacre” in a “densely populated civilian area near one of the mosques,” noting it was a “brutal assault on our defenseless Palestinian people and on Lebanese sovereignty.”

The terror also denied that there are any “military installations in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon,” claiming the target was “an open sports field frequented by young boys from the camp.”

While the IDF has been striking Hezbollah targets on a near-daily basis for months, strikes against Hamas facilities in the country have been rare.

The last notable Israeli strike killed a Hamas commander in the city of Tripoli in July. In April, another Hamas commander was killed in Sidon.

Hamas has a well-established network in Lebanon, including thousands of armed fighters mostly based in the former Palestinian refugee camps spread across the country.

The group's Lebanon branch also actively participated in the fighting against Israel alongside Hezbollah before the ceasefire.

The camps, which, like in Judea and Samaria, are now densely populated urban neighborhoods, are controlled by different armed groups, mostly either Hamas, which is allied with Hezbollah, or PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party.

The Ain al-Hilweh camp saw large-scale violence erupt over control between the two groups in 2023.

As part of a push to establish a monopoly on arms by the Lebanese government, which mainly targets Hezbollah, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) has started to disarm some Palestinian groups as well.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun that the Palestinian groups would lay down their weapons during a visit in May; however, while some groups in Ain al-Hilweh handed over their weapons in September, Hamas has not committed to disarming in Lebanon.