Four Gunmen Killed Leaving a Rafah Tunnel Behind the Yellow Line

Israeli soldiers killed four Palestinian gunmen who were seen emerging from a tunnel in eastern Rafah, in the far south of the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces announced on the morning of Sunday 30 November 2025. The IDF said the four were spotted coming out of the tunnel; its statement gave no further detail of the encounter.

The ground where it happened lies on the Israeli side of the Yellow Line, the ceasefire boundary that runs through Gaza. Dozens of Hamas gunmen are believed to be trapped in tunnels in that area, according to the military. The announcement did not identify the four men, say whether Israeli forces were hurt, or describe how the tunnel was found.

What the Yellow Line is

The Yellow Line came out of the 20-point plan brokered by US President Donald Trump, signed on 9 October 2025, under which the ceasefire took effect on 10 October and Israeli forces pulled back to an agreed line rather than leaving the Strip. Phase one of the plan required the return of all hostages, living and dead, within 72 hours, against the release of 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

The line itself runs roughly 45 kilometres and has been marked on the ground with yellow-painted concrete blocks laid by the Israeli military. When it was drawn it left about 47 per cent of Gaza on the Palestinian side and roughly 53 per cent under Israeli control, according to the reference account of the boundary, which also records that Israeli-held territory expanded in the months that followed. Because the line was fixed above ground and Gaza's tunnel network was not, fighters ended up underground on the Israeli side of it.

The men still underground in Rafah

Eastern Rafah has produced a slow sequence of these encounters. On 26 November 2025 the Times of Israel reported that soldiers watching surveillance cameras spotted six operatives leaving tunnels there, killing four and capturing two, and that in the preceding week the military had reported killing more than 20 operatives and capturing eight more. The military has said it intends to kill or capture every remaining operative on the Israeli side of the Yellow Line, and assesses that dozens are still below ground.

A truce that keeps being tested

The Rafah tunnel operations ran alongside sharper flare-ups. On 22 November, the Times of Israel reported that a gunman crossed the Yellow Line and fired at Israeli troops without causing injuries, and that Israel's Prime Minister's Office said five senior Hamas officials were killed in the air strikes that followed. Hamas signalled through Arab mediators that it might end the truce, then said publicly that it had not.

What is still unclear

The IDF's Sunday statement was brief. It did not say when overnight or that morning the four men were seen, what weapons they carried, whether they were armed at all, or whether they were attempting to cross back to the Hamas-controlled side. No Palestinian account of the incident was included, and the military did not say whether the tunnel was subsequently destroyed.