IDF says it has killed Hamas brigade’s anti-tank commander, other senior terrorists

The Israel Defense Forces says it has killed a number of Hamas commanders in airstrikes in the Gaza Strip over the past day.

Among the senior officers is Yakub Ashur, the commander of Hamas’s anti-tank guided missile array in the terror group’s Khan Younis Brigade, the IDF says.

The IDF says Ashur, “as part of his role, took part in leading and directing offenses against IDF forces.”

Separate strikes also killed Hamis Dababash, a veteran member of the terror group and the former head of Hamas’s intelligence division; Tahsin Maslam, the head of the combat support company for Hamas’s special operations in Beit Lahia; Jihad Azam, a Hamas intelligence officer in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City; and Munir Harb, head of information in the Rafah Brigade.

The IDF says Dababash most recently served as the secretary to the head of national relations in Hamas’s political bureau, and was a Hamas representative at the gathering of national and Islamic factions in the Gaza Strip.

It adds that Dababash was also involved in a deadly terror attack against the Gaza Strip settlement of Atzmona in 2002, in which five Israelis were killed.