The Israeli Defense Forces declared on Thursday that they had taken control of a Hamas harbor base located in central Gaza. The IDF said that approximately ten tunnel shafts and four buildings housing related terrorist infrastructure were destroyed in the joint operation of the navy, armor, and engineering forces with air force support. According to the IDF, Hamas trained its naval forces there and also planned and executed naval assaults. Using civilian vessels and Gaza’s naval police boats, Hamas exploited the location for training and attack purposes under the cover of a civilian naval anchorage.
Israeli forces eliminated ten terrorists and cleared all the buildings in the area of the anchorage.
In addition, a monument glorifying the events of the Mavi Marmara raid of 2010 was toppled. Some of the fighters of the Israeli Navy’s 13th flotilla who were involved in capturing the harbor also fought aboard the Mavi Marmara.
In 2010, the Israeli Navy intercepted a six-ship flotilla trying to symbolically break the Gaza blockade. Violent clashes broke out aboard the Mavi Marmara, the flotilla’s largest ship. Ten Turkish Islamists, many of whom were armed, were killed. Turkey severed its ties with Israel over the affair.
Since Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, the Israeli Navy has repeatedly thwarted attempts to transport Iranian weaponry into the Strip via sea.