Israeli air strikes devastated parts of the Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza last week, flattening buildings in a densely populated area where, Palestinian authorities say, at least 195 civilians were killed and scores more are still missing.
Israel says the attacks successfully targeted Hamas military leaders, their fighters and the tunnel network they dug beneath civilian areas and used for operations.
In a new claim that to another Hamas commander has been killed in their second strike on Gaza’s largest refugee camp in two days.
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said that Muhammad A’sar, the head of the Islamist group’s anti-tank missile unit, was ‘eliminated’ using a fighter jet.
The IDF released footage of a dramatic explosion at a Hamas base in the northern Gaza city of Jabalia which they claim killed A’sar – a commander they said carried out attacks against civilians and soldiers.
It comes after Israel said Tuesday’s strike on the same target, the Jabalia refugee camp, killed Ibrahim Biari, who it said was a ringleader of what it called the ‘murderous terror attack’ on October 7.
Israel once again bombed the densely populated Gaza strip from land, sea and air today in its campaign to destroy the Hamas terrorist group after its deadly rampage into southern Israel four weeks ago.
Palestinians sifted through rubble in a desperate hunt for people trapped underneath after Israeli strikes on the Jabalia refugee camp, located in the urban sprawl of north Gaza.
‘It is a massacre,’ said one witness of the strike.
There was no immediate word on possible casualties from the second explosion, which came a day after Palestinian health officials said an Israeli air strike had killed about 50 people and wounded 150 there.
The Israeli military later issued a statement saying its fighter jets had struck a Hamas command and control complex in Jabalia ‘based on precise intelligence’, killing A’sar.
‘Hamas deliberately builds its terror infrastructure under, around and within civilian buildings, intentionally endangering Gazan civilians,’ the statement said.
Announcing the death of A’sar, the IDF said: ‘The IDF, under the direction of Modi’in AMAN and the Shin Bet, eliminated Muhammad Atzar, the head of the anti-tank system of the terrorist organization Hamas, using a fighter jet.
‘As part of his position, Atzar was responsible for all the anti-tank systems in the various brigades in the Gaza Strip, managed the force on a routine basis and assisted in its activation in an emergency.’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has pledged to destroy Hamas – the Palestinian Islamic militant group that controls the Gaza Strip – in retaliation for its Oct. 7 attacks on Israel that killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians.
The strikes at the Jabalia camp – the largest of several refugee settlements in Gaza – have fuelled international concern at the mounting humanitarian toll of Israel’s offensive.
