According to the Israeli military, Khaled Mansour, the jihadist jihadist commander killed in an Israeli missile strike south of Gaza on Saturday night, was responsible for the rocket attacks and mortars targeting Israel lasted for many years, according to the Israeli military.
Mansour, who commands the militant group’s operations in the southern Gaza region, has a rank equivalent to that of a general, the Israeli military said. It added that he claimed responsibility for an attack that killed two Israeli soldiers in 2010 and was involved in another attack that injured the commander of the Israeli Southern Gaza Brigade in 2004.
One of the soldiers killed in 2010, Major Eliraz Peretz, is almost a household name in Israel. His mother, Miriam Peretz, who lost her two sons in uniform in two separate enemy actions, has become a symbol of national sacrifice.
Mansour’s body was pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building in a refugee camp in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, along with the bodies of his deputy and another fighter and five civilians, among them had a child, according to Muslim Jihad.
The militant group mourned their deaths in a statement and vowed to retaliate with more missile strikes. Surviving Islamic Jihad leaders attended Sunday’s funeral for those killed.
Israeli military officials said they regretted the deaths of civilians in Gaza and pledged that they would be investigated. But they have blamed militants operating out of residential areas and using Gaza residents as “human shields”.
The military also alleged that Mansour had plotted to attack Israel using anti-tank missiles and rockets.
Mansour’s assassination follows the killing of the commander of the jihadist organization in Gaza’s northern region, Taysir al-Jabari, in Israeli airstrikes on Friday, which ushered in an outbreak of conflict. latest paintings. Israel says the air strikes have thwarted the group’s plan to launch an anti-tank missile attack along the border in retaliation for the arrest of a senior jihadist commander in the West Bank.
Fady Hanona contributed reporting from Gaza City.
