On Tuesday, Israeli officials said they killed one of the commanders of Hamas that was responsible for the October 7 attacks on its people.
The ISA security agency and the Israel Defense Forces issued a joint statement this week that said fighter jets carried out airstrikes in the Gaza Strip based on intelligence information, which killed Nasim Abu Ajina. They identified him as the commander of a combat battalion for Hamas in the northern region of Gaza.
On Tuesday, the IDF also confirmed that two of its soldiers were “killed during combat in north Gaza,” a region where intense clashes have taken place this week.
In a post the IDF made to social media, they wrote:
“Yesterday, based on IDF and ISA [Israeli Security Agency] intelligence, IDF fighter jets struck the Commander of the Beit Lahia Battalion of Hamas’ Northern Brigade, Nasim Abu Ajina, who directed the massacre on October 7th in the Kibbutz Erez and Moshav Netiv HaAsara.”
The Jerusalem Post reported that the IDF also added that Ajina helped the terrorist organization develop its capabilities with drone attacks. They believe it would be a significant blow to the operations of Hamas moving forward.
In a video the IDF published, officials said:
“His elimination significantly harms the efforts of the Hamas terrorist organization to disrupt the IDF’s ground activities.”
Israel has vowed to “destroy Hamas” with its attacks, and it’s been carrying out more and more targeted strikes that seek to kill all of the senior leadership of the terror group. Officials have already named the Hamas members that they’re targeted, and they’ve even published a list of the people who they’ve already killed.
Many humanitarian and aid organizations around the world, along with the secretary-general of the United Nations and some of the nations in the region, have called for a ceasefire. The Health Ministry in Gaza has claimed that the bombardment carried out by Israel has killed more than 8,500 people, 3,500 of which are children.
Even top U.S. officials, though, have warned against trusting any numbers coming from the Health Ministry, though, as it’s run by Hamas.
Despite all of those calls, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, has flat out rejected all those calls. He has even declined putting a humanitarian pause on fighting, saying that if they let up, it would give Hamas the time it needed to re-organize.
Israel has insisted that the IDF is doing everything it can to preserve all civilian lives. Yet, it said it won’t back down from the assault, as they’re only targeting Hamas officials and any groups allied with them.
On Tuesday, one top-ranking U.S. official spoke to CBS News and said that the immediate objective of the Israeli military is to isolate Gaza City, where Hamas’ power is centralized.
The group, which is officially recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S, Israel and most European nations, has ruled over the strip of land that’s 25 miles long for nearly 20 years now.
