3 Islamic Jihad leaders among 13 dead in Gaza strikes
Israeli air strikes on Gaza killed three Islamic Jihad militant group leaders and 10 others, including several children, on Tuesday, officials in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory said. Islamic Jihad vowed to "avenge" the deaths in the pre-dawn raid involving some 40 Israeli aircraft which hit targets in the crowded coastal enclave for nearly two hours from just after 7am Hong Kong time. The Gaza health ministry said four children were among those killed and 20 people were wounded, some of them in serious or critical condition, in the attacks which left buildings ablaze and reduced others to rubble. Later, violence flared in the occupied West Bank when Israeli forces launched a raid in Nablus in which at least a dozen people suffered bullet wounds, according to Palestinian medics. The Israeli army said that in its Gaza strikes it had targeted three leaders of Islamic Jihad, which it considers a terrorist group, as well as its "weapon manufacturing sites". Asked about child casualties, army spokesman Richard Hecht said: "If there were some tragic deaths, we'll look into it." Islamic Jihad confirmed three of its senior members were killed in Gaza. It named them as Jihad Ghannam, secretary of the Al-Quds Brigades military council, Khalil al-Bahtini, commander of the military wing in northern Gaza, and Tareq Ezzedine, a military leader in the West Bank who operated from Gaza. AFP photographers saw the body of a man identified as Ghannam in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, and also a boy's body in the morgue of Gaza City's Shifa hospital, where mourners had gathered. Islamic Jihad vowed to retaliate, with spokesman Daoud Shehab warning that "the resistance considers that all cities and settlements in the Zionist [Israeli] depths will be under its fire". Hecht said the military was "looking where this thing will develop", while instructing Israeli residents within 40 kilometres of the Gaza border to stay near bomb shelters until Wednesday evening. (AFP)______________________________
Last updated: 2023-05-09 HKT 17:29 