06 March 2024 , 18:46
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Israeli troops have killed the commander of Hamas’s rocket squads in central Gaza in a devastating airstrike.
They pinpointed Amar Atiya Darwish Aladini’s position after he was spotted from the air using surveillance drones. Aladini was behind Hamas rocket fire for years and played a key role in the 2008 war between Israel and Hazan militants.
But it is suspected he was a key commander leading Hamas rocket teams for “decades” according to sources. The Israeli Defence Force killed him in a joint operation with the domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet. It is also believed Israel has conducted strikes on several other Hamas and Palestinian Islam Jihad targets.
Israel said it has eliminated a top Hamas commander (Israeli Army/AFP via Getty Image)They were in response to a number of militant rocket releases aimed at the Israeli town of Sderot, close to Gaza. Israeli targets included apartments where fighters were gathering, weapons stores, rocket launch sites and tunnels.
The attack on Aladini is a major victory for the IDF, which is still preparing to assault the enclave of Rafah, where more than one million Palestinians are sheltering. More than 30,000 Gazans have died in fighting which was prompted by the October 7 Hamas attacks outside the Palestinian strip.
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It is thought more than 70,000 Palestinians have been wounded and many are at risk of starvation. Around 1,200 were killed in the October 7 attacks which triggered the war.