Over 70 terrorists laid down their weapons and surrendered to Israeli forces during an operation in the area of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces said on Thursday afternoon.

The arrests were made after soldiers located a building used by Hamas operatives and a "military" officer, fought with the terrorists and killed several of them.

Battles continued to rage in Gaza City's Shejaiya neighborhood and in Jabalia, also in the northern Gaza Strip, where "many terrorists" were killed, and in Khan Younis in the south over the past day, the IDF said earlier on Thursday.

In Shejaiya, soldiers searched a school complex "that served as a central focus of the fighting of the Hamas Shejaiya Battalion," killing terrorists and destroying terrorist infrastructure in the compound.

In the Khan Younis area, soldiers found weapons and grenades and destroyed two tunnel shafts, a rocket launch pit and a weapons warehouse.

Near the Jabalia refugee camp, IDF soldiers demolished terrorist infrastructure, located weapons and killed terrorists. A Hamas sniper was eliminated by a helicopter gunship after being identified by ground forces.

Terrorist groups in Gaza continue to fire rockets into Israel, with warning sirens sounded in border communities on Thursday morning.

Also on Thursday morning, the IDF released for publication that Maj. (res.) Elisha Levinshtern, 38, from Harish, was killed in action in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday.

His death brings to 116 the total number of soldiers killed since the start of ground operations in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 27; 445 soldiers have died since the start of the war on Oct. 7.

Lt. Col. Yuval Mazoz will replace Lt. Col. Tomer Grinberg, who was killed in Shejaia on Tuesday, as commander of the Golani Brigade's 13th Battalion, the IDF said on Thursday.