Israel kills senior Hamas commander in Gaza strike
UN slams Israel for building a road cutting off Palestinians from their land in occupied West Bank
UNITED NATIONS/CAIRO : The Israeli military killed senior Hamas commander Raed Saed, one of the architects of the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, in a strike on a car in Gaza City on Saturday, several Israeli media outlets reported, citing sources.
The attack killed four people and wounded at least 25 others, according to Gaza health authorities.
There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas or medics that Saed was among the dead.
The Israeli military said it had targeted a senior Hamas commander in Gaza City, without giving a name or details.
If Saed was killed, it would be the highest-profile assassination of a senior Hamas figure since a ceasefire deal came into effect in October.
An Israeli defence official said Saed had been targetted in the attack, describing him as the head of Hamas’ weapons manufacturing force.
Hamas sources have also described him as the second-in-command of the group’s armed wing, after Izz eldeen Al-Hadad.
Saed used to head Hamas’ Gaza City battalion, one of the group’s largest and best-equipped, those sources said.
The Israeli military said that earlier two soldiers were injured by an explosive device that “detonated during an operation to clear the area” of militant infrastructure. It was not immediately clear whether the two incidents were related.
The war in Gaza began after Hamas killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and seized 251 hostages in an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 70,700 Palestinians, most of them civilians, health officials in Gaza say.
Meanwhile, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, has expressed alarm at reports of a so-called “settler road” being built by Israel in the occupied West Bank.
Around 100 hectares of Palestinian land have been reportedly confiscated to make way for the new route.
The road will separate Palestinian farming villages and shepherding communities from their lands, and sever these Palestinian communities from one another, following the Israeli model of the separation road in the western West Bank. Tel Aviv’s move is aimed at benefiting Israeli settlers.
This would mark another step towards the progressive fragmentation of the West Bank, warned the head of the OHCHR’s Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Ajith Sunghay.
“We are alarmed to hear that Israel has actually started building a new barrier and a road in the heart of the Jordan Valley,” he said on Friday.
“This is the most fertile land in the West Bank and the road is likely going to separate Palestinian communities from each other and the Palestinian farmers in Tubas from…land they own on the other side of the planned barrier.”
Sunghay maintained that the move would consolidate Israel’s annexation of the West Bank and remove all sources of livelihood for Palestinians.
He also noted that Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur shams camps have been emptied and that after almost one year, residents have not been allowed to return.
This raises concerns about forcible transfer, which is prohibited under international law, the UN rights official said, before expressing concern about warnings issued to continue bulldozing Palestinian camps. APP
