Israel kills top Hamas military commander in Gaza airstrike

IDF video of airstrike that killed Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari.

The Israeli Defense Forces announced that Ahmed Jabari, the leader of the Ezzedine al Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, was killed during one of several airstrikes launched in the Gaza strip today. The airstrikes were launched in response to a series of rocket attacks from Hamas that have escalated over the past week.

“In the past hour, the IDF targeted Ahmed Jabari, the head of Hamas’s military wing, in the Gaza Strip,” the IDF said in a press release. “Jabari was a senior Hamas operative who served in the upper echelon of the Hamas’ command and was directly responsible for executing terror attacks against the State of Israel in the past number of years.”

The IDF said that the “surgical operation” was executed “in cooperation with the Israeli Security Agency,” or the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal intelligence agency. The airstrike “was implemented on the basis of concrete intelligence and using advanced capabilities.”

Jabari was targeted as part of Operation Pillar of Defense. “The purpose of this operation was to severely impair the command and control chain of the Hamas leadership, as well as its terrorist infrastructure,” the IDF said.

The IDF also claimed to have “damaged the terrorists organizations’ long-range missile capabilities” while targeting “a significant number of long range rockets sites (over 40km) owned by Hamas.” According to Haaretz, more than 20 Hamas targets were hit in the operation.

In addition to Jabari, his “assistant,” Mohammed Homs, “who worked in Khaled Meshal’s bureau as chief of propaganda,” was also killed along with four other Palestinians, according to Haaretz. Meshal is the head of the Hamas political wing that is based in Syria. An unnamed son of Jabari and a seven-year-old girl are also reported to have been killed.

Marwan Issa, Jabari’s deputy military commander, and Raed al Atar, the commander of the Rafah company of the Qassam Brigades, were also targeted in the series of strikes, according to a Facebook posting by Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas leader.

Jabari and the Ezzedine al Qassam Brigades have been implicated in several high-profile attacks against Israel over the past decade, including the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. He also is said to have been instrumental in Hamas’s takeover of Gaza from Fateh in 2007.

The IDF launched Operation Pillar of Defense after Israel was bombarded by a series of rocket attacks attributed to Hamas over the past five days. The IDF reported that 128 rockets were launched from Gaza by Hamas into southern Israel between Nov. 10 and Nov. 12. The IDF responded by targeting the rocket launch sites.

The IDF indicated that further strikes are possible. “All options are open in order to seriously damage Hamas and other terrorist organizations,” the IDF said.

In addition to Hamas, a number of al Qaeda-linked jihadist groups are known to operate in Gaza and have launched rockets and conducted other attacks against Israel. The Salafist-jihadist groups are thought to have united under the banner of the Mujahideen Shura Council [see LWJ report, Mujahideen Shura Council is consolidation of Salafi-Jihadist groups in Gaza: sources].

ahmed-jabari.jpg

Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari (right). Image from the IDF Blog.

9 Comments

  • Gerald says:

    Payback truly is a Bitch!

  • rosenberg says:

    This week, at a time when one million people in Israel are targeted for hundreds of aerial attacks launched by the Gaza regime , a new Israel Advocacy Task Force has been spawned.
    The Israel Advocacy Task Force will address issues of the day that Israel has to cope with on a daily basis.
    Let’s begin with Arab education.
    Contrary to the widely publicized notion that the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA intended to incorporate Holocaust education in their schools, there has never been a plan for a Holocaust curriculum in any UNRWA or Palestinian Authority school.
    Michael Kingsley-Nyinah, director of the executive office of UNRWA said clearly: “I am writing to clarify that there is no ‘Holocaust curriculum’ as such in UNRWA schools and there are no plans to introduce one.”
    There is, however, one aspect of the new Palestinian Authority educational system in that does deal to the Holocaust.
    In all Palestinian Authority schools, students learn from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s PHD, which he wrote 28 years ago at Moscow University entitled “The Other Side: The Secret Relations between Nazism and the Leadership of the Zionist Movement.”
    Abbas’s thesis: the Zionist movement initiated murder of the Jews in Europe.
    The time has come to ask that everyone who funds the Palestinian Authority educational system – beginning with the US Congress – condition money to the PA on the immediate cancellation of their “holocaust curriculum”
    With the genesis of the new session of US Congress in January, The Israel Advocacy Task Force will escort experts on Palestinian Authority and UNRWA education to make presentations for staffers the Middle East Subcommittee of the US House Foreign Relations committee, in tandem with the Center for Near East Policy Research in Jerusalem, http://www.IsraelBehindTheNews,com, ;directed by investigative journalist and community organizer David Bedein.
    To that end, The Israel Advocacy Task Force is seeking sponsors to cover the cost to hire and escort the experts.
    Meanwhile, the time has come for everyone who reads this memo to contact people of influence to demand that the PA and UNRWA cease and desist from the greatest lie perpetrated against the survivors of the Nazi Horrors…applying the principle that a lie repeated often enough will become believable.
    RABBI DR. BERNHARD ROSENBERG

  • Jeff Edelman says:

    Gosh! You see how they blew up that car right in the middle of town. Boy, I wish the US had those capabilities. We could have use them in Benghazi.

  • mike merlo says:

    just for kicks the Israeli’s should have said they were aided by the Islamist opposing Hamas

  • iodean says:

    Good intelligence is priceless

  • Paul says:

    Way to piss off Egypt, Israel.

  • Dave says:

    Several people fleeing entrance to building, lower left from detonation. I have no sympathy for Hamas, but do for the children. Should the IDF have higher standards of engagement?

  • Charles says:

    The Egyptians are going to run out of food fuel and money in two or three months.

    http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2012/11/06/egypt-food-crisis-update/

    If they had any brains they would figure out how to tap the vast river of water that flows up under the desert from the sudan–to grow crops. instead they engage in beauty contests and pissing contests.

    meanwhile the chinese have figured out that there is a great revolution in oil technology occuring in the USA. So they are seeking to emulate it.

    http://rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/122146/China_Looks_to_Emulate_US_Shale_Success

  • JT says:

    Paul,
    Did you miss the part that Hamas has been firing rockets into civilian Israeli areas over the past week, with the frequency recently increasing?
    Do you think we would stand for Canada firing rockets into Buffalo because some anti-Canada types lived there?
    Now, Hamas has targeted Tel Aviv, known by all parties to be a red line. I hope this calms down, but don’t blame Israel.

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