Israeli air strike kills missile commander in Gaza
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A pre-dawn Israeli air strike on an apartment in the Gaza Strip has killed a top Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) commander and one other person.
A warplane attacked an apartment on the fifth floor of a building in Hamad Residential City, near Khan Younis in the south of the strip.
On Wednesday militants in Gaza fired more than 460 rockets at Israel.
The Israeli military hit more than 130 militant targets in Gaza, in the heaviest fighting in nine months.
Twenty-five people have been killed in Gaza since Tuesday morning when Israel began its operation against the PIJ, the Palestinian Ministry of Health there says. Those killed include at least 10 civilians and three other PIJ commanders.
Israeli army radio said four people, including three children, had been killed in Gaza by rockets falling short, though this has not been corroborated by Palestinian sources.
There have been no fatalities in Israel, though some rockets have hit homes and buildings. Most have landed in open areas or been intercepted.
The armed wing of the PIJ confirmed that the head of its missile unit, Ali Hassan Ghali, also known as Abu Muhammad, had died in Thursday morning’s attack.
The PIJ is the second biggest militant group in Gaza after Hamas, and has been responsible for many of the rocket attacks on Israel in recent years
Israel’s military confirmed it had targeted Ghali and what it called two “other Islamic Jihad operatives in Gaza”.
They described the commander as a central figure in the PIJ who had been “responsible for the recent rocket barrages launched against Israel”
Photo: Israeli Iron Dome intercepts missiles launched from the Gaza strip near Sderot in southern Israel, near the border with Gaza. EPA-EFE/ATEF SAFADI
