Israel says it has killed leading Islamic Jihad commander in Gaza

Israel's army says it has killed a senior commander of the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad in an attack inside a humanitarian zone in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Ahmed Aish Salame al-Hashash was the head of the group's rocket and missile unit in the Rafah area of Gaza and responsible for firing rockets from an area designated as a humanitarian zone into Israeli territory, the Israeli military said on Tuesday.

"At the time of the strike, al-Hashash was embedded and operating inside the Humanitarian Area in Khan Yunis," the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wrote on X.

The army said it had monitored the area from the air prior to the attack in order to minimize the danger to civilians. The Khan Younis humanitarian zone is located in the south of the coastal area. Israel's army reportedly killed al-Hashash there on Monday.

It was not possible to independently verify the claims.

The Gaza war was triggered by the unprecedented massacre of more than 1,200 people killed by fighters from Hamas, the PIJ and other armed Palestinian groups in Israel on October 7. Israel responded with massive airstrikes and a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip.

According to the Hamas-controlled health authority, a further 26 people were killed in fighting in the Gaza Strip within 24 hours. Since the beginning of the war, a total of 41,252 people have been killed in the coastal area. The figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

A month ago, the Israeli army announced that "more than 17,000 terrorists" had been killed in the Gaza war. None of these figures can be independently verified.