IDF: Hamas plotted to place bombs near Gaza camps to ‘confuse the enemy’

The Israel Defense Forces on Monday released an internal Hamas document showing that the terrorist organization planted explosive devices adjacent to displaced persons camps in the Gaza Strip during the war “to confuse the enemy’s efforts.”

The document, which the IDF said was written by Hamas’s engineering department in April 2024, proposed detonating the bombs as IDF troops approached.

The goal was to create panic as a smokescreen for the escape of terrorist operatives, according to the military.

The terrorist group also proposed planting explosives along routes used by Gazans, in an attempt to delay the IDF’s advance. It further suggested firing stun grenades into refugee camps to create chaos so that terrorists hiding in the area could flee.

According to the IDF, the plans were part of Hamas’s “preparations to protect its leadership and operatives and evacuate them from areas where the IDF was expected to operate, while endangering and exploiting the civilian population in the area.

“This is further evidence that the Hamas terrorist organization is willing to endanger the lives of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip in order to advance its terrorist activities,” it stated.

IDF slays three Hamas terrorists

The IDF said earlier on Monday that it killed three terrorists from Hamas’s “military wing,” including a cell commander, in airstrikes across the Gaza Strip over the weekend.

Hamas cell commander Majed Ahmed Mustafa Sabbagh was killed in the Tuffah quarter in Gaza City’s Old City on Saturday, according to the military.

In separate strikes, the IDF killed Abdullah Mohammed Khamis Jaber. The terrorist helped produce weapons and played a significant role in Hamas’s production headquarters, the military said. It also killed Amer Bashir Mohammed Khourani, a member of the terror group’s engineering battalion, in Jabalia.

“Recently, the terrorists advanced terror attacks against IDF troops and Israeli civilians and operated to restore the organization’s military capabilities, in systematic violation of the ceasefire,” the IDF stated. “The terrorists were eliminated in aerial strikes to remove the threat.”

The IDF said it used precision munitions and aerial surveillance to mitigate harm to noncombatants.

Israeli forces remain deployed in Gaza in accordance with the Oct. 10, 2025, ceasefire deal brokered by the United States and will continue to eliminate “any threat,” it emphasized.