An Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza killed 12 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists, including members who took part in the brutal Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack, officials said.
The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet intelligence agency confirmed the deaths on Thursday, saying they happened during an attack at a Hamas command center in Jabalia yesterday.
“Large quantities of weapons were stored inside the command and control center, and it was used by the terrorists to plan and execute terror attacks against IDF troops and the citizens of the State of Israel,” the agencies said in a joint statement.
The IDF said that at least three of the Hamas’ operatives killed took part in the Oct. 7 massacre that killed more than 1,200 people and ignited the war in Gaza.
The members were identified as Muhammad Rabe Musbah Arini, Saher Farid Muhammad Abu Rashed, and Zakaria Hussein Abu-Habal.
Abu-Habal notably served as a platoon commander for Hezbollah’s elite Nukhba unit in its eastern Jabalia battalion.
Jabalia has seen the most intense fighting recently as Hamas’ forces continue to resurface in northern Gaza, with one battle on Tuesday leaving 20 terrorists and one IDF soldier dead, according to the Israeli military.
The Hamas-run ministry of health, which does not differentiate between civilians and terrorists, said an additional 19 people died in a series of airstrikes that same day near a populated refugee camp.
As the IDF targets Hamas’ resurgent forces in the area, the Israeli military and terrorist group have agreed to a second, limited cease-fire to allow humanitarian groups to resume a mass polio vaccination effort.
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said a second round of polio vaccinations will start on Oct. 14 in Gaza targeting 590,000 children under the age of 10.
The humanitarian effort comes following a multi-day cease-fire agreement last month to distribute the vaccines to hundreds of thousands of children.
The mass vaccination effort came after the World Health Organization confirmed that at least one infant had been paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus in August — the first case in the Palestinian enclave in 25 years.
With Post wires
