Hamas confirmed Wednesday that Na\u2019el Abu Obeid, the commander of its Rafah Brigade, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip the previous night.<\/p>\n
The organization said Abu Obeid, also known as Abu Atiya, was killed in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis. Hamas issued a statement mourning him as a commander in the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, its military wing, and called on supporters to attend his funeral.<\/p>\n
The Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet security agency also confirmed Abu Obeid\u2019s death, saying he had been targeted in an intelligence-led strike on Tuesday evening. <\/p>\n
The Israeli military described him as a central figure in Hamas\u2019s senior command who headed both the Rafah Brigade and the organization\u2019s military operations division. The Times of Israel reported that the IDF accused him of directing attacks against Israeli civilians and troops while working to rebuild the brigade\u2019s capabilities.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz praised the operation in a joint statement issued shortly after the strike.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe IDF has just struck the commander of the Hamas terrorist organization\u2019s Rafah Brigade, following the elimination earlier this week of the Khan Younis Brigade commander and other senior officials in the organization,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur message is clear: No terrorist is immune, and Hamas will not remain in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n
Netanyahu and Katz also commended the IDF and Shin Bet, saying the two agencies were \u201cacting with determination to eliminate threats and protect the citizens of Israel.\u201d Their statement was published by the Israeli Prime Minister\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Abu Obeid is the latest in a series of senior Hamas commanders killed in Israeli operations. Israel says the campaign is intended to prevent the organization from rebuilding its command structure and resuming attacks against Israeli troops and communities.<\/p>\n
Somaliland offers to send 2,000 troops for Gaza Stabilization Force<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hamas confirmed Wednesday that Na\u2019el Abu Obeid, the commander of its Rafah Brigade, was killed in an Israeli…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-617801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}