Hamas Fighters Confirm Death Of Brigade Commander, Three Other Leaders In Israeli Offensives
Hamas’ military wing has confirmed that the Commander of its northern brigade, Ahmed Al-Ghandour, and three other senior leaders were killed during Israel’s offensive against the Islamist movement.
The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades made this known in a statement on Saturday, noting that Ghandour was a member of its military council and named three other leaders who had died, including Ayman Siyyam, who Israeli media reports said was head of the Brigades’ rocket-firing units.
“We pledge to Allah we will continue their path and that their blood will be a light for the mujahedeen and a fire for the occupiers,” the statement said, without saying when they were killed.
Ghandour, whose nom de guerre was Abu Anas, was listed by the US in 2017 as a “specially designated global terrorist”, putting him on an economic sanctions blacklist, according to NDTV.
He was described as a former member of Hamas’ Shura council and member of its political bureau, by the State Department.
According to the report; Ghandour “has been involved in many terrorist operations,” it said, including a 2006 attack on an Israeli military outpost at the Kerem Shalom border crossing which left two Israeli soldiers dead and four wounded.
That attack resulted in the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was held by Hamas for five years before he was freed in 2011 in exchange for the release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners.
Earlier, Israeli forces said that they killed six Palestinians, including two minors and at least one gunman, in the occupied West Bank. The deaths occurred in the city of Jenin, where Israeli forces raided to detain a Palestinian suspected of involvement in a lethal West Bank ambush.
The military did not immediately elaborate on the Jenin incident, which witnesses described as clashes between gunmen and troops, reported Reuters.
The WAFA official Palestinian news agency said that Israeli forces stormed Jenin “from several directions, firing bullets and surrounding government hospitals and the headquarters of the Red Crescent Society”.
A sixth Palestinian fatality was in Yatma, a village near Nablus city, and another was near a Jewish settlement outside the West Bank town of El Bireh, Palestinian officials said. There was no immediate comment from Israel on those incidents.
Six other Palestinians were injured during the shooting in Jenin, the Palestinian health ministry said. A number of Palestinian factions called for a strike in Jenin on Sunday to “mourn the souls of the martyrs”, the WAFA said.
