Hamas timed IED blast that killed five soldiers in-between IDF air, artillery fire

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Despite those efforts to pave a safe path for the infantry, Hamas managed to place newly laid IEDs in the area where the IDF infantry would later pass through.
The five IDF soldiers who were killed and the 14 soldiers who were wounded on Monday in Beit Hanun by Hamas were ambushed because the terrorist group managed to place improvised explosive devices (IED) there in between air force and artillery barrages, the military said on Tuesday.
St.-Sgt. Meir Shimon Amar, 20, from Jerusalem; Sgt. Moshe Nissim Frech, 20, from Jerusalem; St.-Sgt. Noam Aharon Musgadian, 20, from Jerusalem; Sgt.-Maj. (res.) Benyamin Asulin, 28, from Haifa; and St.-Sgt. Moshe Shmuel Noll, 21, from Beit Shemesh, were killed in the incident.
According to the army, there was heavy air cover and artillery fire in the areas where the IDF's Netzah Yehuda Battalion was set to traverse in the days before the soldiers entered Beit Hanun in northern Gaza and leading up to their arrival a mere few hours prior.
Despite these efforts to pave a safe path for the infantry, Hamas managed to place IEDs in the area where the battalion would later pass in between an earlier round of munitions that was fired into the area and before the last round of munitions was fired.
Moreover, although D9 armored bulldozers and other vehicles have combed through essentially all of Beit Hanun and northern Gaza multiple times so far, by setting the IED in the last 24 hours before the soldiers entered, Hamas was able to avoid the early detection or destruction of the IEDs by these explosive-clearing vehicles.
When questioned about why the army's border lookouts did not spot the terrorists laying the IEDs earlier in the day or the night before, the IDF responded that the spot was around 1.5 kilometers from the border and shrouded in still-standing structures.
These erect structures, which obstructed and blocked any path for vehicles to pass through, were the very reason the IDF sent soldiers on foot through the location in the first place, rather than sending them in protective vehicles.
Although some estimates are that 80% or more of the structures in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed by the IDF during the war, there are still many partially destroyed ones that seem empty but which Hamas terrorists are using as lookout positions to study and map out IDF patrol patterns.
In this case, the soldiers' mission was to surround a few dozen terrorists hiding underground in Beit Hanun to oust and eliminate them.
The IDF has cleared Beit Hanun many times, and the military estimates that it has made tremendous progress there, given that at the start of the Israel-Hamas War, there would have been 1,000 or more terrorists in the area compared to now, where only dozens remain.
However, removing these possibly most well-trained surviving Hamas terrorists who are using clever guerrilla warfare tactics could still take a long time.
This is because these men leave a minimal military 'footprint' and apparently still have very deep tunnels to hide in and to use for traveling throughout the area to remaining structures that provide them with an overview of the IDF's movements.
The five soldiers were killed mainly due to the first two of the three IEDs that exploded. The second IED, which was set off remotely when other soldiers came to rescue those hurt by the first one, killed some of the soldiers who were struck by the first IED explosion.
A third IED was also set off remotely, but the IDF said that the first two were the most deadly.
There was also massive Hamas gunfire in the area as the IEDs were being set off, but while disorienting, the gunshots were ultimately also less deadly than the first two IEDs.
Jerusalem Post Staff and Amir Bohbot contributed to this report.