TEL AVIV, June 23. /TASS/. The Israeli Air Force has struck dozens of sites of radicals in Gaza as troops continued operations in southern and central parts of the Palestinian enclave, the Israel Defense Forces said.

"Over the past day, the Israeli Air Force struck dozens of terrorist targets across the Gaza Strip, including military installations, terrorists and terrorist infrastructure," the IDF said in a statement.

"The IDF continues targeted operations in the Rafah area," the statement said. "Over the past day, troops discovered tunnels and underground terrorist infrastructure."

According to the IDF, it "eliminated a terrorist unit that posed a threat."

In central Gaza, Israeli troops "continued to destroy armed terrorist units over the past day." The IDF "eliminated terrorists in close combat, as well as with sniper fire and drone strikes," the military said.

The situation in the Middle East sharply escalated following an incursion of Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip into Israel on October 7, accompanied by killings of residents of Israeli settlements near the border and taking more than 200 hostages, including children, women and elderly people. Hamas cast the attack as a response to Israeli actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Israel declared a complete siege of the Gaza Strip and started striking the enclave and parts of Lebanon and Syria. Afterward, the IDF started a ground operation in Gaza. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.