torsdag, augusti 21, 2014

Glad nyhet: Två (eller tre) terroristledare eliminerade


 
Och dagens gladnyhet:
 
Confirmed: IDF and Israeli security forces eliminated senior Hamas terrorists Raed Attar and Mohamed Abu Shamala in Gaza last night.
 
The armed wing of Hamas announced Thursday that three of its senior commanders were killed in a pre-dawn Israeli air strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades in a statement identified the leaders as Mohammed Abu Shamalah, Raed al-Atar and Mohammed Barhum. Emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said eight people were killed in the strike.

Witnesses said a four-storey family home was completely destroyed in a series of air strikes.
The airstrike was carried out based on intelligence provided by the Shabak (Israel Security Agency), which led to the identification of two central Hamas figures.
 


Most senior commanders in southern Gaza
Mohammed Abu Shamalah, 40, was the most senior Hamas commander in southern Gaza, classified by security services as the head of the "Southern Command" of Hamas. Abu Shamalah was responsible for the areas of Rafiah and Khan Younis, and is a longtime friend and associate of Ezzedine al-Qassam's elusive leader, Mohammed Deif, who was himself targeted in an IDF strike yesterday - a strike he is believed to have survived.
He was also a close associate of Raed al-Atar, another leading Hamas commander eliminated in this morning's strike.

Abu Shamalah has been involved in dozens of deadly terrorist attacks since the 1990s. Most famously, he was behind the 2006 attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing with Gaza in which two IDF soldiers were killed and Gilad Shalit was taken hostage.
During Operation Protective Edge Abu Shamalah was active in coordinating operations against the IDF, and was behind an infiltration by 13 terrorists via a terror tunnel from Gaza into Israel on July 17.

Raed al-Attar, also 40 years old, was the Brigade Commander of Hamas's southern command in Gaza, and one of the most senior figures within its "military wing". 
Attar was one of the key architects of Hamas's "terror tunnel" network in southern Gaza, and plated an important role in coordinating the construction of tunnels elsewhere in Gaza.
He also helped coordinate several major terrorist attacks, and together with Abu Shamalah were Hamas's top leadership in the southern Gaza Strip.



The third terrorist, Mohammed Barhum, was a less senior Ezzedine al-Qassam commander. He was not the intended target of the operation but was killed while meeting with Attar and Abu Shamalah.
The strike comes just one day after Ezzedine al-Qassam's leader, Mohammed Deif, was targeted in an assassination attempt. Deif's wife and son were killed in that air strike, but Hamas says Deif himself is still alive - although it has not released details on his precise condition.
A Hamas spokesperson further claimed that an alleged "death certificate" purporting to show the death of the terrorist mastermind is a forgery.

Tuesday saw 170 rockets fired at Israel by Gazan terrorists, although Tuesday night was markedly quieter, with just one rocket launched at the southern Israeli town of Ofakim. At least one rocket was also fired this morning into southern Israel, falling in an open field in the Eshkol Region
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