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This is the moment an Israeli drone strike has wiped out fleeing Hamas terrorists after killing their commander in a gun battle in the West Bank. Footage recorded by a drone shows a car being stopped by another in the middle of a road before several shots were fired at the vehicle.
Wassem Hazem, Hamas commander in the northern city of Jenin, was killed in the gun battle while two of his soldiers managed to scramble out of the car and run away to hide behind nearby buildings. But both Hamas terrorists were located in their hiding spots and killed by precise drone strikes.
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said in a statement on the strike: ‘ Wassem Hazem, the head of Hamas in Jenin, was eliminated during a counterterrorism operation in the northern Samaria area.’ ‘Hazem was involved in carrying out and directing shooting and bombing attacks, and continuously advanced terrorist activities in the Judea and Samaria area,’ it added. Witnesses said the Israeli strike hit the Hamas commander’s car in the town of Zababdeh, southeast of Jenin. An AFP journalist saw human remains being removed from the vehicle by paramedics.
The IDF statement said that shortly after killing Hazem, an ‘IDF aircraft eliminated two additional Hamas terrorists who attempted to flee from the vehicle that they were inside with Hazem. ‘Maysara Masharqa and Arafat Amer operated under the command of Hazem and took part in shooting attacks against Israeli communities.’ M16 rifles, a handgun, cartridges, explosives, gas grenades were allegedly found in the terrorists’ vehicle and in their possession.
It comes as the IDF is pressing on with their deadly operation in the West Bank and killed five people that it said were part of a militia, including local commander Mohammed Jaber. Israel said Jaber was killed on Thursday along with four other militants in a shootout after the five had hidden inside a mosque, adding that he was linked to numerous attacks on Israelis, including a deadly shooting in June, and was planning more.
Jaber had become something of a Palestinian hero earlier in the year when he was reported killed in an Israeli operation, only to make a surprise appearance at the funeral of other militants, where he was hoisted onto the shoulders of a cheering crowd. The Islamic Jihad also confirmed his death yesterday. Israel’s search-and-arrest raids continued for hours Thursday, including the city of Jenin.
Firefights also erupted in Fara’a, a Palestinian urban refugee camp in the foothills of the Jordan Valley, where the Israeli army said it struck and killed a group of militants travelling in a car. Their militant affiliations were not immediately clear. The army also said it uncovered caches of weapons, explosive devices and other military equipment inside a mosque in Fara’a and arrested another militant in Tulkarem, where a member of Israel’s paramilitary Border Police was wounded.
Israel says the raids across the northern West Bank – which have killed a total of 16 people since late Tuesday – are aimed at preventing attacks. But Palestinians see them as a widening of the war in Gaza and an effort to perpetuate Israel’s decades-long military rule over the territory.
The raids drew alarm from the UN and neighboring Jordan, as well as from British and French leaders, who stressed the urgency of cease-fire in Gaza after nearly 11 months of fighting between Israel and Hamas. Meanwhile, Medics at al-Awda Hospital in central Gaza said Thursday nine Palestinians from the same family – including two women and five young children – were killed in an Israeli strike on an apartment building in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Israel did not immediately offer comment on the intended target of its attack.
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