The Israeli military has taken control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing in the south of the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Tuesday. “Following intelligence that indicated that the Rafah Crossing in eastern Rafah was being used for terrorist purposes, IDF troops obtained operational control of the Gazan side of the crossing,” the army wrote on its Telegram channel. That followed an overnight operation in which the ground troops together with the air force “began a precise counterterrorism operation” to eliminate the Palestinian Islamist militia Hamas and…