Israeli army strikes terrorist group in Lebanon

The Israel Defense Forces says it struck an anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) squad in southern Lebanon preparing an attack against northern Israel.

The military says it also hit another two ATGM positions in the area, Caliber.Az reports citing IDF's press service.

Separately, a missile was fired by Hezbollah terrorists at an IDF position near Manara, causing no injuries, the military says.

Earlier, IDF announced that army engineers began a wide-scale operation to destroy Hamas tunnels in areas of the Gaza Strip that have come under Israeli control since the start of the ground offensive.

The combat engineers are using various types of robots and explosive devices to destroy the tunnels, detonate any booby traps installed by Hamas, and kill terrorists, the report says.

“Maybe at first they were able to harass us, sting us by firing from tunnel exits, but after we established control of the areas, the engineering operation started,” a senior officer in the Southern Command said.

“We are going to collapse the entrances and the tunnels on them. It will become a death zone. They made a mistake, they chose to be in a place they could not escape from. They will die in the tunnels,” he said.

The report says the troops have already destroyed some 100 tunnels not counting the ones hit in airstrikes.

Moreover, the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate says its so-called “targets centre” has identified some 1,200 new Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing ground offensive that began last week.

The IDF says hundreds of soldiers are working to produce new targets “on a large scale.”

A senior intelligence officer says that “in war, the enemy behaves differently and creates new opportunities.”

The Military Intelligence Directorate is using artificial intelligence and automated tools to “produce reliable targets quickly and accurately,” the IDF says.

The senior officer says other new tools are being used for the first time to immediately provide ground forces in the Gaza Strip with updated information on targets to strike.

So far, the IDF says it has struck more than 12,000 targets in the Gaza Strip.