Israeli army continues fighting in Khan Yunis IDF spends $11.7 billion on three months of war/VIDEO

The Israel Defense Forces have published new data on the progress of the ground military operation in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours.

A truck with weapons of Hamas terrorists was destroyed, and intensive fighting continues in the Khan Yunis neighbourhood, in the south of the Gaza Strip, Caliber.Az reports citing the IDF Press Service.

In Khan Younis, 98th Division fighters identified two militants who were loading weapons onto a truck. Aviation was used to eliminate the weapons truck and the terrorists.

Soldiers of the 7th Brigade discovered a Hamas militant headquarters in Khan Yunis, which contained many weapons and ammunition.

Also in Khan Yunis, IDF forces destroyed two more weapons depots over the past 24 hours.

In the northern Gaza Strip, the Israeli Air Force eliminated five militants.

Furthermore, as of January 9, the cost of fighting the war in Gaza and confronting Hezbollah on the northern border was 70.2 ($11.7 billion) billion shekels, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Some 16 billion shekels ($428 million) were the cost of ammunition (including anti-missiles), 14 billion shekels ($375 million) were the cost of manpower, 11 billion shekels ($294) were the use and maintenance of the Air Force (fuel, repairs, etc.), 10 billion shekels ($268 million) - activation and maintenance of other weapons, 7 billion shekels ($187 million) - logistics and supply, 6 billion shekels ($160) - computer systems, communications systems and intelligence, 3 billion shekels ($80 million) - medicine and rehabilitation. Another 3.2 billion shekels ($85 million) went to other expenses.

The average cost of a day of military operations is 0.81 billion shekels ($214 million), while in the first days of the war the cost of a day of military operations was 1.3-1.5 billion shekels ($348-$402 million), and then decreased to 400 million shekels ($107 million). It is expected that in the future it will drop to 200 million shekels ($ 53.6 million) (unless a full-scale conflict breaks out in the north).

Meanwhile, Hamas armed wing spokesman Abu Ubaida said on January 14 that the fate of many Israeli hostages has become unknown.

In his first televised appearance for several weeks, marking the 100th day since the outbreak of the war, Abu Ubaida said many of the hostages "may have been killed", blaming their fate on Israel.

He added, "any talks before stopping the Israeli aggression are worthless."

The Oct. 7 cross-border attack into Israel came in response to 100 years of "massacres against our people carried by the occupier and its gangs," he added.

The attack killed more than 1,200 people, the biggest single-day loss of life since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. The assailants seized 240 hostages and took them to Gaza.

Abu Ubaida said that during the war, fighters of the Hamas armed wing attacked and took out of service about 1,000 Israeli vehicles.

Speaking on the possibility of an expansion of attacks, Abu Ubaida added that the group had been told by "several parties in the resistance fronts that they will expand their strikes on the Israeli enemy in the coming days."