The Israeli military on Thursday sought to confirm whether top Hamas commander Yahya Sinwar in the Gaza Strip was among the “three terrorists” killed by troops during an operation in the ravaged Palestinian territory. He announced that he is working on it.
Prominent Israeli journalists, citing military and intelligence officials, said immediately that Mr. Sinwar was killed almost accidentally on Wednesday when troops opened fire on three armed men in or near the southern Gaza city of Rafah. I started reporting. Unconfirmed reports suggest that a regular Israeli patrol discovered and killed the men, and then noticed that one of them resembled Sinwar.
In a short statement, the Israel Defense Forces said only: “We have confirmed that one of the terrorists may be Yahya Sinwar. At this stage, we cannot confirm the identity of the terrorist.”
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is seen in this March 22, 2017 file photo. Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto/Getty
Photos circulating on social media showed the corpse of a man with severe head injuries who resembled a Hamas commander, but CBS News could not immediately confirm the images. Mr. Sinwar is the most wanted on Israel’s target list since October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a cross-border terrorist attack that killed around 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. He is one of the characters.
The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday that there was “no evidence of hostages in the building from which the terrorists were removed.”
Israeli Defense Minister Job Gallant posted a cryptic message on social media on Thursday that hinted at the possibility of Sinwar’s murder. It features photos of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas commander Mohamed Eldeif with red crosses on their faces, with a third photo between them left blank. , on which another red cross was drawn. Israel killed both Nasrallah and El Deif last year.
Gallant also included a quote from the Torah and Old Testament, the Jewish scriptures, that says, “And they pursued their enemies…”
He then said in his own words: “We will reach out to every terrorist and eliminate him.”
It was not immediately confirmed where in Gaza the operation took place. The announcement comes hours after an Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced people in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, killed more than a dozen Palestinians, including children, the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry said. .
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that it had attacked “a facility formerly used as the ‘Abu Hassan’ school,” where “dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists were present.”
The Health Ministry said at least 15 people were killed, but did not say how many may have been militants.
The Israel Defense Forces has published a list of the names of more than a dozen alleged terrorists who are using the facility as a command and control center. The report said the men were “involved in rocket attacks against Israeli territory and in the planning and execution of terrorist attacks against Israeli Defense Forces units and the State of Israel in recent days,” and said that based on intelligence, “precision He said he had been the target of an attack.
The Israel Defense Forces have not said how many of the terrorist suspects are believed to have been killed in the attack, but the school, like many schools in the Gaza Strip, is a shelter for displaced people after a year of forced displacement. He said they were allegedly present at the school. The war became “a further example of the Hamast terrorist organization’s systematic abuse of civilian infrastructure in violation of international law.”
Images captured on video provided by the Israel Defense Forces on October 17, 2024, which CBS News has not been able to independently verify, show a weapon that the IDF claims was found inside a school in Jabalia, north of Gaza. . Israel Defense Forces/Handouts
The military released photos and videos believed to have been taken by troops on the ground before Thursday’s attack, saying it had been found inside the school building. This is evidence of a “complete combat facility,” the IDF said.
Israel recently warned Palestinians to leave northern Gaza, where military operations have intensified in recent weeks.
The attack came four days after the Biden administration sent a tersely worded letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials. The letter warned that the humanitarian situation in the devastated Gaza Strip must improve within a month or Israel risks losing a steady supply of American arms and weapons. Military funding will be cut off.
In this Oct. 12, 2024 file photo, a young Palestinian man reacts to the bodies of his relatives killed in an Israeli airstrike at Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. Omar Al-Qatta/AFP/Getty
The White House acknowledges that Hamas frequently uses civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip to store weapons and fighters, but civilians must still be protected and used by terrorist groups. He stressed that those who are unable or unwilling to flee the area are not considered combatants.
The US also made clear in a letter to Israeli officials that the Biden administration objects to the way Israel has been waging a parallel war with Hamas’ Hezbollah ally in Lebanon in recent weeks. . Israel said the operation in Lebanon was aimed at halting Hezbollah’s year-long rocket and drone attacks across Israel’s northern border. Hezbollah said it would continue these attacks in support of Hamas until the war in Gaza ends.
The Israeli attack has killed more than 2,300 people in Lebanon and displaced most of the population, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
Israel has taken steps to reverse a significant drop in humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza since receiving the Biden administration’s letter, but the Israel Defense Forces continued to attack both Gaza and Lebanon this week with heavy airstrikes. attack, claiming they were acting in legitimate self-defense.
More than 42,400 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Israel began its war with Hamas in response to a brutal attack on October 7 by a terrorist group designated by the United States and Israel, the Health Ministry said. Announced.
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