Israeli army says killed Hamas battalion leader in Rafah

GAZA: The Israeli army said on Tuesday that it has killed Mahmoud Hamdan, commander of Hamas’s Tel al-Sultan Battalion, in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah.

Drone surveillance detected several Hamas cells, which were then attacked by the Israeli air force, and during the raid, Hamdan, together with three additional company commanders from the same battalion, was killed, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a statement on social media platform X.

Hamdan played a crucial role in planning the Oct. 7 attack and other operations against Israeli forces in Rafah, he said.

Adraee announced that the leadership chain of the battalion and dozens of others associated with it have been eliminated.

There has been no immediate comment from Hamas on this matter.

In a separate statement, Adraee said fighter jets targeted a Hamas-affiliated group inside a command and control complex hidden in a building that was previously a mosque in the Al-Bureij area of central Gaza.

The complex was used for planning and executing attacks against Israeli forces, he said.

Meanwhile, Palestinian security and medical sources reported that Israeli warplanes had targeted the al-Farouk Mosque and the youth club in the Al-Bureij refugee camp.

Medical sources told Xinhua that the airstrike killed one person and injured 10 others, who were taken to the hospital with varying degrees of injuries.

Israel launched a large-scale offensive against Hamas in Gaza to retaliate against a Hamas rampage through the southern Israeli border on Oct. 7, 2023, during which about 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others taken hostage.

The Israeli offensive has so far killed 41,020 Palestinians and injured 94,925 others in the coastal enclave, reported Gaza-based health authorities on Tuesday.

-Xinhua