IDF says it hit 3 Hamas commanders in Gaza tent camp, contests claim dozens killed
Targets of airstrike in humanitarian zone identified as head of terror group’s aerial forces, senior intel officer, another top operative; Hamas authorities lower death toll to 19
At least 19 Palestinians were reported killed as the Israeli military said it struck three senior Hamas operatives at a command room embedded within an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in the southern Gaza Strip early Tuesday morning.
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said fighter jets struck “significant Hamas terrorists” who were based in the command center in Khan Younis. Palestinian media reported that the strikes took place in the al-Mawasi region on the Strip’s southern coast, west of Khan Younis.
The Hamas commanders had “advanced and deployed terror plots against IDF troops and Israeli civilians,” the military said.
They were later named by the IDF as Samer Ismail Khader Abu Daqqa, the head of Hamas’s aerial forces; Osama Tabash, the head of surveillance and targets in Hamas’s intelligence division; and Ayman Mabhouh, another senior Hamas officer.
All three were “directly involved in the October 7 massacre” and in other attacks on troops in Gaza and against Israel in recent months, the IDF said.
The IDF said it took “many steps” to mitigate harm to civilians in the strike, including “lengthy intelligence gathering” and continuous aerial surveillance in the hours before the attack, “in a way that verified the presence [of the targets] in the area alongside other terrorists.”
The military did not immediately confirm if the three were killed in the strike.
مدير الإمداد في الدفاع المدني: القصف على منطقة مواصي خانيونس خلف حفر بعمق تسعة أمتار.#مجزرة_خانيونس#خانيونس pic.twitter.com/5ES6yRmz7r
— Newpress | نيو برس (@NewpressPs) September 9, 2024
Gaza’s Health Ministry said it confirmed that at least 19 people were killed in the strike, and that the toll may rise as more bodies are recovered.
The Hamas health ministry said more than 60 others are wounded, and the death toll may rise as some victims are still under the rubble and sand.
Earlier, Hamas’s civil defense — first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government — and government media office claimed that 40 people were killed in the strike, a toll that Israel has disputed.
“In general, and according to a preliminary review, the numbers published by the Hamas-run Government Information Office in Gaza, which has consistently broadcast lies and false information throughout the war, do not align with the information held by the IDF, the precise munitions used, and the accuracy of the strike,” the military said.
“Despite the extensive measures taken by the IDF to enable the Gazan population to move away from combat zones, including by designating a humanitarian area, the Hamas terrorist organization continues to embed its operatives and military infrastructure in the humanitarian area and systematically use Gazan civilians as a human shield for its terrorist activities,” the IDF added.
Hamas officials said rescue teams were hampered by large craters blasted into the ground where tents sheltering displaced Gazans previously stood.
A spokesperson for Hamas’s civil defense unit quoted by the Hamas-linked Shehab news agency claimed entire families were swallowed under mountains of sand in the strike, which left massive holes in the ground, and rescuers lack the equipment to dig them out.
Residents and medics said the humanitarian zone was struck by at least four missiles, leaving craters as deep as nine meters (30 feet).
Gaza’s Hamas-run civil emergency service said at least 20 tents caught on fire.
“Our teams are still moving out martyrs and wounded from the targeted area. It looks like a new Israeli massacre,” a Gaza civil emergency official said.
Videos showed Gazans desperately clawing at mounds of sand in the darkness as they tried to reach the dead and injured.
Hamas, meanwhile, claimed in a statement that its operatives were not in the area when it was hit by Israeli fighter jets.
“The occupation’s allegations of the presence of resistance fighters are a blatant lie,” Hamas said in a statement on Telegram.
The group has repeatedly denied embedding within civilian populations, despite evidence to the contrary.
In recent months, dozens of airstrikes have been carried out against Hamas sites embedded within schools and other sites used as shelters for civilians, according to the IDF.
On Monday, following rocket fire from the northern Gaza Strip at the southern coastal city of Ashkelon a night earlier, the military called on Palestinians in the Atatra area to evacuate.
Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, published a map of the zones that need to be evacuated.
#عاجل ‼️ الى كل المتواجدين في المنطقة المحددة
⭕️المنظمات الإرهابية تطلق مرة أخرى قذائف صاروخية نحو دولة اسرائيل وتنفذ أعمالًا إرهابية من هذه المنطقة
⭕️تم تحذير المنطقة المحددة مرات عديدة في الماضي
⭕️المنطقة المحددة تعتبر منطقة قتال خطيرة. pic.twitter.com/0q355414el— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) September 9, 2024
He said that “the specified area has been warned many times in the past” and it is “considered a dangerous combat zone,” following repeated rocket attacks on Israel.
Two rockets were launched at Ashkelon in the attack on Sunday night, one of which was intercepted while the other landed in the sea.
The IDF in recent months has repeatedly issued evacuation orders for areas from which terrorists launch rockets at Israel.
The war erupted when Hamas-led terrorists rampaged through southern communities on October 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages to Gaza, while committing brutal atrocities.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 40,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 342.
