The Israeli army announced that it has mobilized 40 aircraft for the operation against three commanders of the Al Qods Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, in Gaza and Rafah, on the border with Egypt.
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“We achieved the objectives we set out to achieve,” said Richard Hecht, an army spokesman.
Islamic Jihad, a group considered “terrorist” by Israel, the European Union (EU) and the United States, confirmed the deaths of the three leaders.
They were identified as Yihad Ghannam, commander of the Al Qods Brigades for the Gaza Strip, Khalil al Bahtini, council member and commander for the north of the territory, and Tareq Ezzedine, the movement's “military action commander” in the occupied West Bank, who coordinated its work from Gaza.
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Israeli attacks on Gaza left 13 people dead, including four children, and 20 injured, according to the Ministry of Health in the territory controlled by the Islamic movement Hamas.
The Israeli army asked residents in an area 40 kilometers from the border with Gaza to remain close to bomb shelters until Wednesday night to avoid possible Palestinian rocket launches.
An AFP correspondent saw Ghannam's body in the morgue of a Rafah hospital. In Gaza, a building was hit by bombing and its upper part was destroyed.
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“We did our best to concentrate the bombings against the fighters,” Hecht responded when asked. questionabout the death of minors in the attacks.
“If tragic deaths have occurred, we will investigate,” he added.
Islamic Jihad criticized the action, which it called a “cowardly Zionist crime”, and promeyou that “the resistance will avenge the murdered leaders”.
Daoud Shehab, commander of the movement in Gaza, stated that “all Israeli cities and colonies” will be “under fire”.
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A Hamas spokesman, Hazem Qassem, told AFP that Israel was responsible for the “consequences of the escalation”.
Truce
The bombings began shortly after 2 am (00 pm Brasília time, Monday) and lasted almost two hours.
The attacks come less than a week after the announcement of a truce, reached with Egyptian mediation following a new escalation of violence between the Israeli army and Islamic Jihad.
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The clashes began after the death of Khader Adnan, a leader of the Islamic movement who spent more than 80 days on hunger strike in an Israeli penitentiary.
In separate statements for each of the Islamic Jihad leaders killed, the army said it “will continue to work for the safety of civilians in the State of Israel.”
The notes present Ghannan as “one of the main members of the organization, which was responsible for coordinating arms and money transfers between the terrorist organization Hamas and Islamic Jihad.”
Bahtini, in turn, was named “responsible for rocket launches against Israel last month.”
Ezzedine “planned and commanded several attacks against Israeli civilians” in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his involvement in suicide bombings, but was released in a prisoner exchange in 2011 and expelled to Gaza .
“It’s about time,” Israel’s Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, wrote on Facebook. “Our request for an offensive response has been met,” he added, before expressing the hope that “the aggressive policy continues in the long term.”
In the West Bank, the army carried out an operation in Nablus. A 14-year-old teenager was injured by gunfire from Israeli troops and taken to hospital, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.
Tuesday's victims bring to 121 the number of Palestinians killed since the beginning of 2023 in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the same period, 19 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian died, according to an AFP report based on information released by official sources on both sides.
