13 Palestinians were murdered, including three Islamic Jihad commanders and numerous family members, after Israeli jets and helicopters attacked numerous targets in Gaza overnight as part of what Israel claimed as an operation against “kingpin terrorists.”
Three of its commanders, together with their wives and kids, were acknowledged by the Palestinian terrorist group to have died in the operation.
According to the group, the al Quds Brigades commanders who were killed included Tariq Muhammad Ezzedine, one of the leaders of the military wing of the al Quds Brigades in the West Bank, Khalil Salah al Bahtini, commander of the northern region, and Jihad Shaker Al-Ghannam, secretary of the military council.
It later vowed a “response” to Israeli airstrikes, calling the attacks an “aggressive, heinous massacre.”
Hamas, the Palestinian militant movement that runs Gaza, issued a similar statement, promising a “firm response from the unified resistance forces, whose unity is manifested in its greatest form in the field.”
The Al Shifa hospital in Gaza said those killed were members of four families plus one other individual.
The dead included five women and four children, a list of the dead released by the Al-Shifa Medical Complex showed.
One of the Palestinian men killed in Israeli airstrikes was a prominent dentist, Jamal Khaswan, who died along with his wife and son, the Ministry of Health added. Khaswan was Chairman of the Board of Directors of Al-Wafa Hospital, the ministry said, praising him as a scientific and practical man of great determination.
He held Russian citizenship, according to the Russian Representative Office in Ramallah. The Russian Mission said Khaswan and his wife left behind two orphaned children who are also Russian citizens.
The Ministry of Health added that 20 people had been injured, including three children and seven women.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed it launched pre-dawn airstrikes on Gaza, saying it was a “response to incessant aggression on the part of the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization.”
IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht called the targets “kingpin terrorists” and insisted that the military “did as much as we could to focus on them.”
But he also conceded the IDF was “aware of some collateral,” an apparent reference to the wives and children who were also killed alongside those being targeted.
“If there were some tragic deaths, we’ll look into it and get back to you,” he said in response to reporters’ questions.
Islamic Jihad said Ghannam, 62, was also commander-in-chief of the al Quds Brigades and has been wanted for over 20 years, having survived five previous assassination attempts.
He had worked in Yasser Arafat’s Fatah and the Popular Resistance Committees, secular Palestinian militant groups that predate the emergence of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the group said.
The IDF accused Ghannam of coordinating weapons and money transfers between Islamic Jihad and Hamas, the militant group which runs Gaza. It called him one of the most senior members of Islamic Jihad.
Calling the strikes “Operation Shield and Arrow,” the IDF said its fighter jets and helicopters hit 10 Islamic Jihad targets, including what it said were “rocket production workshops in Khan Yunis,” weapon manufacturing sites, military compounds, a concrete manufacturing site and a military post in southern Gaza.
Video from Gaza showed explosions lighting up the night sky and the rubble from buildings hit by the strikes.
The latest violence came almost a week after Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza exchanged fire following the death of a prominent Palestinian hunger striker in an Israeli prison.
Israel conducted strikes on what it said were targets belonging to Hamas as dozens of rockets were fired from Gaza toward Israel on May 2.
It followed the death of Palestinian detainee Khader Adnan, an Islamic Jihad former spokesman who became a symbol of Palestinian resistance to Israeli detention policies, in Israeli custody after 87 days of hunger strike.
IDF spokesman Hecht said planning for Tuesday’s operation began after the rocket fire from Gaza last week.
The strikes took place overnight Monday because of a convergence of intelligence information, weather and permissions, he said, adding some 40 IDF aircraft were involved in the operation. Hecht tweeted Tuesday morning just before 8 a.m. local time (1 a.m. ET) that the IDF had “stopped our strikes for now.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen cut short a three-day official visit to India in the wake of the Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.
He said he had received a security update immediately on landing in New Delhi on Tuesday, when he was due to travel to the city of Agra and then to the financial capital Mumbai on Wednesday, according to an itinerary published by India’s Ministry of External affairs.
Gaza is one of the most densely packed places in the world, an isolated coastal enclave of almost two million people crammed into 140 square miles.
Governed by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the territory is largely cut off from the rest of the world by an Israeli blockade of Gaza’s land, air and sea dating back to 2007. Egypt controls Gaza’s southern border crossing, Rafah.
Israel has placed heavy restrictions on the freedom of civilian movement and controls the importation of basic goods into the narrow coastal strip.
Hecht said he did not know if there would be more follow up strikes.
“We don’t know yet where we go. It’s still early,” he said. “We’re ready for as long as it takes. The big question is Hamas. What will they decide to do?”