Israel kills three Islamic Jihad leaders in an attack on Gaza that leaves another 10 dead

At least 13 people, most of them members of the Islamic Jihad, died in Gaza and some 20 were injured by the intense bombardments with some 40 planes and drones of the Israeli Air Force this morning on the strip, confirmed the Palestinian Ministry of Health..

The Israeli Army confirmed the attacks against targets of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (YIP) and some of its leaders, “responsible for launching rockets into Israel in the last month”, such as Jalil Baitini, Tareq Az Aldin and Jahed Ahnam, who were killed. , as well as some of their relatives and neighbors, including women and children. According to the latest count of the Ministry of Health, the bombings left 13 “martyrs”, including four children and four women; as well as 20 injured, including three children and seven women, and some in critical condition.

“Killed in a joint Army-General Security Service operation, the YIP commander in northern Gaza, a YIP leader responsible for directing activities in the West Bank from Gaza and the secretary of the YIP military council,” indicated the Army about Baitini, Aldin and Ahnam, respectively. As explained by the Israeli Army, Jahed Ahnam was “one of the most important members of Islamic Jihad”, who had served as commander of the group's operations in southern Gaza and was in charge of coordination with the Islamist Hamas movement..

Tareq Az Aldin was in charge of coordination between members of the YIP in Gaza and in the occupied West Bank and would have planned “multiple attacks against Israeli civilians”; while Jalil Baitini served as commander of the YIP operations in northern Gaza and, according to the Army, was responsible for the attacks launched from the Strip towards Israel during the last month.

Aviation bombings

The bombardments of the Israeli aviation took place on the cities of Gaza, to the north of the strip, and of Rafah and Khan Younis, to the south, against buildings where these high officials of the YIP lived, including a residential tower in the neighborhood of Al Rimal in Gaza, but also on military installations of the group, considered a terrorist by Israel, the US and the European Union.

A military spokesman reported that the operation named Shield and Arrow is the response to the launch of more than 100 rockets last week by Palestinian militias from Gaza towards Israel in revenge for the death after 86 days on hunger strike of the Palestinian prisoner. Jader Adnan, a senior YIP member in the occupied West Bank.

Israel also responded with shelling to those shots, but restricted to military targets and causing only one death; but the exchange of fire ceased within 24 hours thanks to an Egyptian-brokered truce. YIP sources confirmed that militants from the group were in the two buildings bombed with missiles launched by Israeli drones, which also caused damage to numerous infrastructures in the enclave..

The Al Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the YIP in Gaza, lamented in a statement the death of the three leaders “who were assassinated as a result of a cowardly Zionist crime at dawn today.”. “We mourn our martyred leaders, along with their wives and several of their children.. We affirm that the blood of the martyrs will increase our strength, we will not abandon our positions and the resistance will continue,” they added..

The Islamist movement Hamas, which rules de facto in the strip, also mourned the death of these “distinguished resistance leaders who were brothers in blood and arms in the Islamic Jihad Movement, who were assassinated by the treacherous Zionist forces.”. “Our people and their courageous resistance know how to strike down the enemy and respond to their heinous crime in a way that heals the hearts of believers and brings our people closer to liberation from this criminal occupier,” they added..