Israel’s destruction of the Qassam Brigades: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells Israeli authorities: “We are tearing it apart”
In a statement on Tuesday, the Israeli military also said that the northern brigade, Hamas’s second largest, had been “significantly damaged.” The Israeli military claimed to have inflicted serious damage to the battalions of the Gaza City brigade.
Among those in the annotated photo the army said it had eliminated were the head of Hamas’s aerial division, two battalion commanders, a brigade commander and a deputy brigade commander.
Mr Netanyahu made a video saying that the forces were encircling the house of Sinwar. He can escape, but we have to reach him.
Since then, Israel has declared war on Hamas with the intent of destroying the organization. In the years since it control of Gaza, the group has placed the strip under siege and caused a deadly bombing campaign.
Israeli forces are currently in southern Gaza in pursuit of Hamas’ top leaders who are believed to be hiding there. One of the people in that group is Mohammed Deif, the leader of the Qassam brigades.
The killings are a setback for Hamas amid a powerful Israeli invasion that has leveled parts of northern Gaza, displaced what the United Nations says is more than 90 percent of the population and killed more than 15,500 people, according to the Gazan Health Ministry.
The military wing of Hamas, the Qassam brigades, confirmed last month that at least three men in the picture had been killed, including the military leader known as Abu Anas. A Hamas battalion commander was a second. In November, a spokesman for the Israeli military said its forces had attacked an underground site where Mr. al-Ghandour had been hiding.
The rare photo of the Hamas leaders released on Tuesday, the Israeli military said, was taken while the group hid in a tunnel underneath a residential neighborhood near the Indonesian hospital in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahia.
“Hamas wanted to tear us apart; we are tearing it apart,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday, after meeting with the families of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza. The government is under a lot of pressure to broker another truce with Hamas, or continue the bombardment.
The Hamas leadership has been hit by Israeli forces since the group launched their attack on southern Israel.
An Israeli intelligence unit looked at the picture after it was seized, but didn’t know who took the picture. There are some details of the photograph that cannot be independently verified.