TEL AVIV. On the third day of the ceasefire, after digging through the rubble and bunkers in the northern sector of Gaza, Hamas confirms the death of five military leaders including one of the founders of its military wing: Ahmed Randour (also written: Ghandour), considered right-hand man of the political leader of the Movement in the Strip Yihia Sinwar. In the late morning a funeral procession was organized for them in the presence of a thousand supporters waving the green flags of the movement. In normal times the ceremony would have begun in a mosque: but during the fighting many of them were damaged by Israel, which said they often served as cover for Hamas’ military activities.
Furthermore, unlike the rule, the bodies of the Hamas commanders were not placed on stretchers, but rather in wooden crates: which suggests that their bodies were decomposed. In a farewell message, the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, confirmed that Randour was the commander of the northern front in the Gaza Strip and a member of the Higher Military Council. “We promise before Allah – they added – that we will continue along the path that he has indicated to us and that his blood will be a source of enlightenment for the fighters and a fire for the occupiers”.
By Randour Israel claimed that it had begun its military activity as early as 1984, even before the founding of Hamas (1988). In 2016 he took part in the kidnapping of soldier Gilad Shalit, who was held hostage for 5 years. Following that episode (and the Hamas ‘putsch’ against Abu Mazen) Israel ordered the blockade of the Gaza strip. Randour was responsible, according to Israel, for a long series of attacks, rocket launches and also for the progressive destabilization of the West Bank. Among the commanders killed is also Aiman Siam, the head of the Hamas missile project which – since 7 October – has launched around 10,000 rockets against Israel, hitting as far north as Haifa. The other commanders killed were Wael Rajeb (Commander of the Battalion of Beit Lahia, in the north of the Strip), Farsan Khalifa (head of the Hamas military organization in the refugee area of Tulkarem, in the West Bank) and Rafet Salman, a leader of the ‘Gaza City Brigade ‘.
As of early October, Hamas had 24 battalions, each with around 1,000 men, according to the Israeli army. The most affected are those who were located in the north of the Strip, while the others appear to still be organised. Today Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an inspection of the armed forces in Gaza, reiterated that Israel intends to carry the operations “to the end, to victory, nothing will stop us. Destroy Hamas not only in the Strip: a few days ago, in a press conference, Netanyahu also said that he had ordered the Mossad to strike the leaders of the terrorist organization wherever they are in the world. But Hamas’ number 1, Ismail Haniyeh, resides in Doha, Qatar: that is, in the capital where Mossad head David Barnea has visited several times in recent weeks in the context of Qatar’s mediation for the release of the hostages. Two days ago the French newspaper Le Figaro learned from a qualified Israeli source that «Qatar has received an assurance from Israel that the Mossad does not intend to attack Hamas on its territory». Today the Jerusalem Post confirmed that information.
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