The Israeli army publishes a “rare” photo of Hamas military leaders

On Tuesday, the Israeli army published an illustrative picture of eleven military commanders in the Hamas movement, indicating that it had killed five of them.

Among the people who appeared in the photo, and whom the army said it killed, were the commander of the Hamas Air Force, Issam Abu Zakba, the commander of the Northern Gaza Brigade, Ahmed Al-Ghandour, the commander of the Central Jabalia Battalion, Ibrahim Al-Bayari, the commander of the Support Battalion, Raafat Salman, and the deputy commander of the Northern Brigade. Sector, Wael Rajab.

The army added that the rare photo of Hamas leaders was taken while the group was hiding in a tunnel under a residential neighborhood near the Indonesian Hospital in the city of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.

An Israeli intelligence unit analyzed the photo after it was seized in Gaza, but did not reveal who took the photo. It was not immediately possible to independently verify some details of the photo, including its date and exact location.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday, during his meeting with the families of the remaining hostages in Gaza, that the forces killed about half of the leaders of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, but he did not mention the names and details of all the dead.

The leaders appear in the picture sitting at a long, low table with some fruits and drinks in front of them.

The Israeli army says that Hamas built a vast network of tunnels over a period of 15 years and that they contain command centers, and that the movement uses them to store missiles, as well as to provide a means for militants to move without being noticed.

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, confirmed last month that at least three of the men shown in the photo were killed, including Ahmed Al-Ghandour and his deputy, Wael Rajab, in addition to Raafat Salman.

Israel launched its campaign against the densely populated Gaza Strip in response to an attack launched by Hamas fighters on the seventh of last October on Israeli towns, killing 1,200 people and detaining 240, according to the Israeli census.

The Hamas media office said on Tuesday that the number of Palestinian deaths as a result of the Israeli attacks exceeded 16,248, including 7,112 children and 4,885 women, with thousands more missing and feared buried under the rubble.