Limited ground raids and bombs destroying bunkers on the 20th day of the war
Israel killed two leaders of the “Al-Qassam Brigades” affiliated with the “Hamas” movement, namely the commander of the missile system in the northern region of Khan Yunis, Hassan Al-Abdullah, and the deputy head of the “Al-Qassam Brigades” intelligence services, Shadi Baroud and thousands of other people, mostly women and children, were subjected to intense shelling that day. The 20th anniversary of the war in the Gaza Strip, which also saw a limited ground incursion and the targeting of a Israeli plane over Gaza and bombing of Tel Aviv and other Israeli areas, and ended with Al-Qassam announcing that 50 Israeli prisoners in the Strip had been killed due to continued Israeli bombing.
On Thursday, Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari, in joint statements with the Shin Bet security service, announced that “fighter planes guided by intelligence information” had assassinated the leaders of the “Al-Qassam Brigades”, Al-Abdullah and Baroud, indicating that the latter was responsible for planning the attacks launched by Hamas on October 7, in coordination with Yahya Al-Sanwar, the Hamas official in Gaza.
By assassinating Al-Abdullah and Baroud, Israel killed many Al-Qassam leaders, along with members of the Hamas political bureau, but did not achieve the first level and its most important objective, such as Al-Qassam leader Muhammad Al-Deif and the leader of Hamas in Gaza. Yahya Al-Sinwar and Marwan Issa, known as “the shadow man”, who is Al-Deif’s deputy, and Israel considers them the three most important objectives it wants to achieve in Gaza.
Al-Qassam leaders were killed in two attacks out of 250 launched by Israeli aircraft in the last 24 hours in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military said it attacked 250 Hamas targets, including “infrastructure, operational command headquarters, tunnel openings and rocket launchers installed in a civilian environment.”
Israeli media confirmed that the Israeli army used bunker bombs in its raids to attack Hamas underground, including tunnels.
But most of the victims who arrived at hospitals were women and children. The Hamas-affiliated Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza accused Israel of committing 43 massacres in 24 hours, killing 481 Palestinians, most of whom were displaced in the southern Gaza Strip, which Israel says is a “safe” area. where residents of the northern part of the Strip must travel.
The Ministry of Health announced that the toll from Israeli attacks on Gaza “has reached 7,028 martyrs”. Among them there are 2,913 children, 1,709 women and 397 elderly people, as well as 18,484 citizens who have suffered various injuries since October 7. The Ministry explained that 70% of the victims were children and women, noting that “149 Palestinian families lost 10 or more of their members in the occupation’s aggression against Gaza, while 123 families lost between 6 and 9 members, and 416 families lost between two and five of their members.” Its members.”
The Minister of Works and Construction, Muhammad Ziara, spoke of Israel’s destruction of approximately 200,000 housing units, representing more than 25% of the populated areas of the Gaza Strip, which left 1,950 people missing under the rubble, as well as to the victims announced numbers.
By bombing citizens’ homes, Israel seeks to force them to displace and evacuate their homes.
Although there are one million four hundred thousand displaced people in Gaza, according to official data, Israel wants a complete evacuation of the northern region, including hospitals, in preparation for the postponed second phase, which is the ground invasion.
At dawn on Thursday, Israel carried out a limited incursion of tanks into the northern Gaza Strip, led by the “Givati Brigade”, as part of “preparing conditions in the region for the next phases of fighting”.
The army statement said: “As part of the activity, the forces identified and targeted many saboteurs, destroyed terrorist infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch sites, carried out work to clear the area and left after completed the mission.”
The Al-Qassam Brigades did not comment on the Israeli statement, attached to the aerial photos, but said they had targeted a helicopter east of Bureij with a Sam-7 missile and hit it.
The “Al-Qassam Brigades” also announced the missile bombing of Tel Aviv, the Third Eye, Ashkelon, Ashdod and the Nirim site on Thursday morning, and then launched a large salvo in the evening that hit Tel Aviv and its suburbs, Ben Gurion Airport, Beersheba and towns and cities around the Gaza Strip, “in response to attacks against civilians in the Strip”. He said Israeli raids killed about 50 prisoners out of 240 in the Gaza Strip.
Al-Qassam’s announcement came at a time when Egyptian and Qatari mediators were trying to reach a deal that would secure the release of civilian prisoners from Gaza in exchange for a humanitarian truce.
The Gaza Strip is experiencing an unprecedented crisis with the interruption of fuel, electricity, water, medicine, food and basic necessities, and all this heralds the collapse of the most important sectors, including the health sector.
Oxfam said Israel is using the policy of starvation as a weapon of war against civilians in Gaza and renewed its call to allow food, water, fuel and other basic necessities into the Gaza Strip. Oxfam’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, Sally Abi Khalil, said: “The situation is absolutely horrific!” Where is humanity? Millions of civilians in Gaza are subjected to collective punishment before the eyes of the world and there is no justification for using starvation as a weapon of war. “World leaders cannot continue to sit back and watch. They must act, and act now.”
For its part, Hamas called on Friday for a Palestinian, Arab and Islamic mass movement to demand the opening of the Rafah crossing and an end to the “war of extermination” that Israel is waging against the Gaza Strip.