Israeli military kills Hamas spokesman
Al Jazeera :
A Hamas spokesperson has been killed by an Israeli air strike in northern Gaza, news outlets have confirmed, as Israel’s army continues its renewed assault on the besieged enclave.
Hamas spokesperson Abdel-Latif al-Qanoua was killed when Israeli fighter jets bombed his tent shelter in the northern city of Jabalia in the early hours of Thursday morning, according to Al-Aqsa television and the Shehab News Agency.
Several more people were wounded in the strike, including children, according to Hind Khoudary, an Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza.
Khoudary said the attack was one of several carried out by the Israeli military across the Strip over recent hours, including a strike on a home in the as-Saftawi area of Gaza City, which killed six members of the same family.
On March 18, Israel abruptly ended a fragile two-month ceasefire as it resumed its intense bombing campaign and ground operations in Gaza. Israel has since killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians in an attempt to pressure Hamas into freeing the remaining captives held in the war-torn enclave.
Several senior Hamas officials have also been killed over the past week. On Sunday, an Israeli air strike on the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza killed five people, including Ismail Barhoum, the head of finances and institutions within Hamas’s political office.
That same day, Israeli fighter jets also bombed tents housing displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis. Salah al-Bardaweel, a prominent Hamas political leader and member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, was killed in that attack alongside his wife.
Both men were part of Hamas’s political office – a 20-member decision-making body, 11 of whom have been killed since the start of the war in late 2023, according to the Reuters news agency.
Hamas still holds 59 of the roughly 250 captives the group took during the October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel.
At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas assault while the Israeli military has now killed at least 50,183 Palestinians and wounded 113,828 others since launching its ground and air assault on the Palestinian enclave.
About 830 people have been killed since Israel resumed attacks 10 days ago, according to statistics from Gaza’s Ministry of Health, with women and children making up more than half of the casualties.
The United Nations’ humanitarian agency (OCHA) also announced on Tuesday that 142,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced by the Israeli military since March 18, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian situation caused by Israel’s ongoing restrictions on aid entering Gaza.
The rising death toll in Gaza comes amid weeks of slow-moving and fractious ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas. Mediators – the United States, Qatar and Egypt – have failed to secure an extension to the first stage of the three-phase agreement, which expired on March 1.