IDF eliminates two senior Hamas commanders

The army retaliated after Hamas forces fired on Israeli troops at the Yellow Line.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The IDF eliminated two senior Hamas commanders in the Gaza Strip Wednesday evening after terrorist fire was directed at Israeli troops in the Khan Yunis area.

While no soldiers were hurt, the IDF has consistently responded to such violations of the Hamas-Israel cease-fire by targeting terror sites and forces on the Hamas side of the Yellow Line, which divides the Gaza Strip roughly in half.

Imad al-Salem, commander of the Zeitoun Battalion and deputy commander of Gaza City, was one of the targets killed.

Hamas claimed that nine people died in the air attack on a house in the Zeitoun neighborhood of the city.

The other fatality was a top naval commander, the IDF said, without naming him.

Israeli airstrikes hit Khan Yunis as well as other sites in Gaza City, killing 25 people in all, according to Hamas.

Earlier Wednesday, Israeli troops identified several terrorists crossing the Yellow Line in northern Gaza.

When the suspects approached in a way that posed “an immediate threat,” the army said, the soldiers opened fire and killed one of them, prompting the others to flee.

“The IDF will continue to operate with force to remove any threat to the State of Israel,” it said in a statement.

While the IDF has firm control over its zone in Gaza, Hamas has been steadily consolidating power on its side of the Yellow Line, where most civilians live.

Brutal intimidation remains a primary method, as Hamas forces have arrested, tortured and killed hundreds of people suspected of rejecting their authority, according to Gazan humanitarian activists.

Another method is controlling the supply of humanitarian aid, as it did throughout the war.

In a Thursday report, Channel 12 cited an Israeli soldier in Gaza who said, “Aid goes entirely to Hamas.”

Trucks load pallets full of food, medicine, tents and other supplies at the Zikim Crossing to northern Gaza, which was reopened last week for this purpose, but the shipments do not reach their destinations.

“They go up the coast three to four kilometers, and there an armed Hamas guy gets on every truck,” the soldier said.

“This also happens right in front of the eyes of the UN,” he added.

The United Nations has consistently denied that aid from international organizations has been diverted by Hamas, despite video and eyewitness proof provided by Israel.