Day 164: IDF kills senior Hamas leader, 40 more terrorists in Shifa Hospital operation

Israeli forces eliminated a senior Hamas commander and around 40 more terrorists who were hiding in Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital on Monday, the IDF announced.

The terrorists were killed during the large-scale raid of the Shifa Hospital compound that IDF troops began early on Monday morning, after receiving intelligence that Hamas operatives had reestablished themselves in the hospital that had already been raided last November.

During the raid, terrorists opened fire on Israeli forces, who returned fire and killed some 20 terrorists hiding in the hospital compound and another 20 inside the hospital. Around 200 terror suspects have been arrested there so far.

The senior Hamas official who was killed was identified as Faik Mabhouh, the head of Hamas’ internal security operations department and brother of Mahmoud Mabhouh, who was allegedly assassinated by Israel in Dubai in 2010.

The IDF stated that Faik Mabhouh was responsible, among other things, for synchronizing Hamas mechanisms during routine and combat periods.

During the raid, IDF soldiers belonging to the 162nd Division, the 401st Brigade battlegroup, and the Navy commando Shayetet 13, found many weapons and terror funds intended for Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives.

“The place that the Hamas terrorists thought was their hiding place and a safe place immediately became, with a rapid raid, a death trap for the terrorists in Shifa,” Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday, according to the Times of Israel.

“In this, we have taken another step to defeat Hamas, another brick, another blow. This will continue and strengthen until we eliminate the Hamas organization and everything it represents,” he added.

Among the approximately 200 Palestinians arrested in the hospital compound was Al Jazeera reporter Ismail al-Ghul, the Qatari news outlet claimed.

“We demand the immediate release of our reporter Ismail al-Roul and the journalists with him, and we hold the occupation responsible for their safety,” Al Jazeera stated.

“We confirm that the attack is an attempt by the occupation army to intimidate the journalists, to prevent them from reporting their crimes against the citizens in Gaza.”

Hamas condemned the killing of Mabhouh as the latest “Zionist crime,” adding that he was in charge of securing the aid convoys entering the northern Gaza Strip.

According to the terror organization, his death was meant “to harm the security of the aid and its arrival to the Palestinians and to continue their starvation.”

The assassination of Mahmoud Mabhouh ignited a media firestorm in 2010, after CCTV footage showing the team of assassins moving through a hotel in Dubai was published. Reports indicated that the assassins had used forged Western passports to enter the country.

Mabhouh served as Hamas’ chief of logistics and weapons procurement and was wanted in Israel for his involvement in the kidnappings and murders of two IDF soldiers in the 1980s.