Saturday, June 22, 2024, 2:49 p.m.
New aerial bombardments have hit the Gaza neighborhood of Tuffah and the Shati camp, where the Israeli army sought to destroy between one and three Hamas cells. A number of victims has not yet been provided, but Palestinian propaganda claims this Saturday that there are at least 42 dead and dozens injured.
The confusion this afternoon was absolute. Several buildings located in the radar of the fighters have been destroyed and emergency personnel are searching for possible victims under the rubble. Rescuers have recovered fifteen bodies, including those of several women and children, according to the Civil Defense. Ambulances enter and leave the devastated area, which indicates that victims are still being located.
Palestinian media have confirmed a succession of “raids and violent bombings” in the two aforementioned places, as well as hand-to-hand combat in southern Gaza. In the center of Rafah, aerial projectiles “exploded residential buildings” inhabited by civilians. Military sources have indicated, for their part, that the attacks were directed against a group of properties belonging to families of leaders of the armed wing of Hamas and that they suspected the existence of weapons and “terrorists” inside.
Previous assault
The Defense Forces are waiting to disseminate a more complete message, but have announced that the main target of the bombings was the senior militia commander Raad Saad, who reportedly died under the explosions.
Saad is considered Hamas’s chief of operations. The infamous army assault on the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City last March – with dozens of fatalities and which left the medical center even more devastated – was organized precisely to capture him after Intelligence reports placed him there as a patient. . He even appears among the 350 photographs that the military distributed to the media of the detained militiamen.
The commander who, according to the Defense Forces, died in the bombings this Saturday was part of the narrow circle of leaders of the military wing of Hamas. He was among the most wanted along with Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif. With Sinwar he participated eight years ago in the torture sessions against Mohamoud Ishtiwi, a commander that the militia executed for his homosexuality and possible informer for Israel.
Relentless against its gay militants, for the militia this is “indecent conduct” and they also believe that it can encourage Israel to put pressure on them in order to act as spies. Ashtiwi was declared a spy and corrupt, locked in a dungeon, hung by his hands and flogged with 400 lashes before being shot three times in the chest by his executioners.
The execution caused a sharp division between the political and military wing of Hamas, as a significant section of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades combat forces felt that it was eliminated due to internal power struggles. Ashtiwi led a 1,000-man battalion in the 2014 war against Israel and belonged to an influential Gaza family, which had even given shelter to the persecuted Mohammed Deif.
Raad Saad, who took part in those tortures, has always stood firm alongside Yahya Sinwar, the “hardest” military leader the militia has ever had and guardian of his army “being pure.” Some sources point out this Saturday that the killed commander has remained during these eight months of war in Gaza hidden in his tunnels, very close to his boss and that he has organized some of the militia’s combats against Israeli troops.
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