Skip to main content

Israel claims it killed new Hamas armed wing chief in Gaza strike

Israel said on Wednesday it had killed the new head of Hamas’s armed wing in Gaza, Mohammed Odeh, in a strike the day before, after killing his predecessor in a similar attack this month.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz claimed the “commander of the armed wing of the Hamas terrorist organisation in Gaza was eliminated yesterday”.

Hamas has not yet commented.

“In the Prime Minister’s name and in my own, congratulations to the IDF and the Shin Bet on the brilliant execution,” Katz claimed in a post on X.

“We committed ourselves to eliminating everyone who led the October 7 massacre, and that is what we will do: they are all marked for death, wherever they may be.”

After announcing the strike on Tuesday, Katz and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a joint statement that Odeh had “served as head of Hamas intelligence during the October 7 massacre and was appointed approximately one week ago as successor to Ezzedine al-Haddad”.

Haddad was killed by an Israeli strike on May 15.

“Odeh was responsible for the murder, abduction and injury of numerous Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers,” Katz and Netanyahu said.

In the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, retaliation against Israel, Netanyahu pledged to target and eliminate the Hamas leaders behind it.

Israel’s invasion of Gaza has killed at least 72,803 people, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Israel has previously killed Hamas’s former political chief Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, its Gaza chief who was widely regarded as the mastermind of the October 7 attack.

It also killed Mohammed Deif, the longtime commander of Hamas’s armed wing, known as the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, as well as Mohammed Sinwar, who succeeded his brother Yahya Sinwar, as Gaza chief.

Israeli strikes have also targeted Hamas operatives in Lebanon and senior Iran-backed Hezbollah commanders allied with the group, including former Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.



from Dawn - Home https://ift.tt/j97YXvb

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ailing Pope Francis to embark on Asia trip, his longest ever, in September

Pope Francis will travel to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Singapore from September 2-13, the Vatican said on Friday, announcing his first overseas trip of the year and the longest of his 11-year papacy. The Asia trip has been on the papal agenda for some time, but there had been doubts on whether the 87-year-old pontiff would embark on it given his increasing frailty, with a record of skipping engagements due to health problems. His last international journey was a two-day stay in Marseille, France in September. In November, he pulled out of a trip to the COP28 climate conference in Dubai because of a lung inflammation . Francis is now scheduled to be in Jakarta between Sept 3-6, Port Moresby and Vanimo between Sept 6-9, Dili September. 9-11 and Singapore Sept 11-13, his spokesman said in a statement. Vietnam, which had been suggested by the pope and Vatican officials as a possible further destination during the nearly two-week long Asia trip, was not mentioned. In ...

‘A war out there’: Maple Leafs survive shootout thriller in Utah

SALT LAKE CITY — Whew. They needed this one, even if they didn’t wholly deserve it. For a Monday night in Salt Lake City, the stakes felt unusually high for the sagging, road-weary Toronto Maple Leafs .  Heading into their inaugural game at Delta Center, the Leafs had dropped three straight, blown a couple leads, slipped out of first place, and  distracted  the fan base by propositioning their best player with a trade.  Worse: Their process hasn’t been tight for a couple weeks. Mistakes have crept in. Speed is giving their defence issues. And their razor-sharp goaltenders have begun to look human. Head coach Craig Berube held an intense team meeting Sunday, following Saturday’s 7-4 outclassing in Denver. Multiple players spoke up. Captain Auston Matthews said they’d reached look-in-the-mirror time. “The really bad games have a good way of being the biggest learning experiences,” thoughtful goaltender Joseph Woll said, following Monday’s slump-snuffing, nail-b...

A diary of (near) default - 2023 was a year of economic uncertainty in Pakistan

Despite having little in common, even our political parties could agree on one thing: Pakistan’s economic situation was dire in 2023. The year saw Pakistan go through a long and rocky road to finding some semblance of economic stability — if it can even be called that — while weathering political and social turmoil. Pakistanis also experienced a double whammy this year: the one-two punches of the worst economic crisis in decades and all-time high inflation. Add to that the gut punch of the aftermath of the catastrophic floods of 2022 began to settle in. Flood victims receive boiled rice from relief workers, after taking refuge on a motorway, following rains and floods during the monsoon season in Charsadda, Pakistan on August 27, 2022 — Reuters In 2023, according to the World Bank , over 39.4 per cent of the population fell below the poverty line, which means over 12.5 million people are living in meagre conditions. Additionally, 8.5 million people face acute food insecurity due ...