Smoke rises following an explosion in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, March 5, 2024. (PHOTO / AP)

GAZA / BEIRUT - The Israeli military announced Wednesday that it killed the chief of the Hamas rocket unit in an operation in the central Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours.

Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a post on social media platform X that IDF forces, based on information from the Military Intelligence Directorate and Shin Bet security service, killed Amar Atiya Darwish Aladini, who was in charge of the Hamas rocket unit in central Gaza.

He said Aladini had been working for Hamas for decades and was active in the current war, noting that the man was responsible for equipping rockets for the faction and launching rocket attacks as early as 2008 against the IDF operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

The statement claimed that Aladini played a major role in the "bloody" Hamas attack on Oct 7 last year, during which he "promoted intensive firing" towards Israel's maneuvering forces while directing rocket launches targeting Tel Aviv and other Israeli border towns.

The Israeli military said its troops raided "terrorist infrastructures" in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis, arresting 250 Hamas and Islamic Jihad members and seizing combat equipment

There has been no comment from Hamas on Aladini's killing.

Adraee added that over the past few days, the Israeli air force attacked several Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets in northern Gaza, including apartments used by "saboteurs" as hideouts, warehouses for storing combat equipment, launching pits and tunnels.

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Meanwhile, in another statement, the Israeli military said its troops raided "terrorist infrastructures" in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis, arresting 250 Hamas and Islamic Jihad members and seizing combat equipment.

It claimed that some of the seized personnel had participated in the Oct 7 attack, adding that in a joint operation in the Hamad City neighborhood west of Khan Younis, Israeli commando units and the 13th Marine Commando arrested "many saboteurs," including the chief of a Hamas sniper cell and two Hamas team leaders.

Also on Wednesday, Lebanese armed group Hezbollah said that it has carried out 1,194 military operations against Israel since Oct 8, 2023, inflicting more than 2,000 casualties on the Israeli side.

The group noted in a statement that it advanced at most 23 km into Israel in its operations, prompting the Israeli army to evacuate 43 settlements and 230,000 settlers.

It listed the Israeli army's losses as 68 military vehicles, 38 command centers, 300 technical equipment, 570 settlement units, two military factories, 22 artillery positions, and two Iron Dome platforms.

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People gather around a truck carrying humanitarian aid that was hit in a reported Israeli airstrike on the main coastal road in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza on March 3, 2024. (PHOTO / AFP)

The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel in the southern Lebanese border area has shown no sign of abating since its onset on Oct 8, 2023.

According to Lebanese military sources, the Israeli army continued Wednesday airstrikes on Lebanese towns and villages in the area, killing a Hezbollah fighter and a civilian and wounding six other "civilians."

The Lebanon-Israel border has been witnessing increased tension since Oct 8, 2023, after Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets toward Israel in support of the Hamas attack on Israel the previous day, prompting Israel to respond by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon.

The confrontations between the two sides have killed 341 people on the Lebanese side, including 227 Hezbollah members and 66 civilians, according to Lebanese security sources.