An Israeli airstrike targeting the so-called “humanitarian zone” designated by Israel in the central Gaza Strip led to the death on Saturday of the mayor of Deir el-Balah, who was accused by the IDF of being a member of the armed wing of the Hamas terrorist group.
In a joint statement released following the strike, the Israeli army and the Shin Bet said that Diab Emad Ali Abd al-Rahman al-Jaro had “actively taken part in the operations of Hamas in power in the Deir al-Balah region, maintaining permanent contact with officials of the military wing of Hamas and providing them with assistance during the battles against IDF troops.
In his role, he was mayor of Deir al-Balah, head of the Hamas Emergency Committee in central Gaza, and was responsible for Hamas’s political activities in the region, overseeing various government offices. , the army said.
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Al-Jaro was targeted while he was in the building that houses the Deir al-Balah town hall, a building located in the humanitarian zone. The soldiers noted that the building was used by Hamas members to plan attacks against troops on the ground in Gaza or to attack Israel.
The IDF specified that measures aimed at limiting the damage suffered by civilians had been taken before the strike. Precision munitions were thus used as part of the latter, which was accompanied by an aerial surveillance mission. According to Palestinian media, eleven people lost their lives in this bombing.
“Hamas continues to use civilian and humanitarian infrastructure to carry out its terrorist operations in violation of international law,” the military said.
According to an assessment carried out by the army last July, around 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants live in the humanitarian zone of the enclave.
An area which is located in the al-Mawasi region, on the southern coast of the Gaza Strip, in the western neighborhoods of Khan Younis and in the center of Deir al-Balah.
Its perimeter changed several times during operations carried out by Israeli soldiers – however, as of the end of August, it covered just over 46 square kilometers, or almost 13% of the total area. of the band.
Also on Saturday, the Israeli army said it had launched a drone attack against a terrorist cell whose men were preparing to strike “immediately” soldiers in Gaza and Israel.
The army noted that the gunmen were targeted while they were gathered at a former school in Gaza City, adding that it took measures aimed at sparing civilians as much as possible when it targeted the Yaffa school, which in the past welcomed little boys and which now serves as a refuge for displaced Palestinians.
Residents inspect the damage caused by an Israeli strike on the UNRWA Al-Majda Wasila School, which houses displaced Palestinians in Gaza City, December 14, 2024. (Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP)
Emergency services in Gaza reported at least seven deaths, including a woman and her baby, and 12 injured following the airstrike.
Rocket warning sirens were also activated inside Israeli territory after a rocket fired from the center of the Gaza Strip fell into a field in the south of the Gaza Strip. country.
Sirens rang out in the border communities of Nirim and Ein Hashlosha during the attack, which caused no injuries.
This rocket attack is the second incident of this type in the space of forty-eight hours. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group, for its part, launched two projectiles towards Ashkelon during the day on Friday.
The war in Gaza broke out with the pogrom that was committed by Hamas, on October 7, 2023 – Around 3,000 terrorists entered Israel by land, air and sea, massacring more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251 people who had been taken hostage in the Gaza Strip. The gunmen had engaged in large-scale sexual violence, committing atrocities.
On the Israeli side, the death toll from the Israeli ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and the military operations carried out along the border with the strip stands at 386 dead. A toll that includes a police officer who was killed during a hostage rescue mission and a contractor who worked for the Department of Defense, a civilian.
Gaza’s health ministry, which is under Hamas’s authority, says more than 44,000 people have been killed or presumed dead in the fighting so far – although the toll remains unverifiable and makes no distinction between civilians and terrorists. In November, Israel reported having killed around 18,000 armed men on the ground in Gaza, in addition to around a thousand terrorists who were killed on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023 and in the days following the attack. pogrom.
