From the Liveblog of
Friday, October 4, 2024
IDF and Shin Bet says Tulkarem airstrike targeted head of local Hamas terror network
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
The head of a Hamas terror network in Tulkarem, along with several other operatives, were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the West Bank this evening, the IDF and Shin Bet say.
According to the military, the airstrike carried out by a fighter jet in Tulkarem targeted Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, a top Hamas commander in Tulkarem who was planning a terror attack “in the immediate time frame.”
Oufi planned and led an attempted car bombing attack near the settlement of Ateret last month, the IDF says.
He was also involved in providing weapons to other terror operatives who carried out numerous attacks in the West Bank and in Israel recently, including those that led to the injury of Israeli civilians, according to the military.
The IDF and Shin Bet add that he “worked to establish terrorist networks on behalf of Hamas and assisted terror operatives in the area to carry out significant shooting and explosive attacks.”
“[He] intended to carry out an attack in the immediate time frame,” and therefore the strike was carried out, the IDF says.
Several more terror operatives in the same Hamas network were killed in the strike, according to the IDF. The Palestinian Authority health ministry says that at least 18 people were killed.
The IDF has carried out dozens of airstrikes in the West Bank in the past year, but mostly with drones and helicopters, rarely with fighter jets.
