An Israeli airstrike in the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday killed the mayor of Deir al-Balah, who is accused of being a member of the military wing of the Hamas terror group.
In a joint statement following the strike, the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet said that Diab Emad Ali Abd al-Rahman al-Jaro had “actively participated in the operations of Hamas’s government in the Deir al-Balah area, maintained continuous contact with officials in Hamas’s military wing, and provided them with combat assistance against IDF troops.”
In his role, he was the mayor of Deir al-Balah, the head of the Hamas-run Emergency Committee in central Gaza, and was responsible for Hamas’s political activity in the area, as well as for various government offices, the military said.
Al-Jaro was targeted while at the Deir al-Balah municipality building, located within the humanitarian zone. The IDF said that the building was being used by Hamas operatives to plan and carry out attacks against troops in Gaza and against Israel.
The IDF said it had taken steps to mitigate harm to civilians in the strike, including using precision munitions and aerial surveillance. Palestinian media reported at least 11 dead in the strike.
“Hamas continues to abuse civilian and humanitarian infrastructure for its terrorist activities, in violation of international law,” the military said.
عاجل| استشهاد رئيس بلدية دير البلح المهندس دياب الجرو بقصف صهيوني استهدف مبنى البلدية في #دير_البلح. pic.twitter.com/6CGUq0ZSUG
— قدس فيد (@quds_feed) December 14, 2024
Some 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are estimated to be living in the enclave’s humanitarian zone, according to a July assessment by the IDF.
The zone is located in the al-Mawasi area on the southern Strip’s coast, the western neighborhoods of Khan Younis and the central Deir al-Balah.
Its size has changed multiple times amid evolving IDF operations against Hamas, but as of late August, it was just over 46 square kilometers (17.7 square miles), or nearly 13 percent of the total size of the Gaza Strip.
Also on Saturday, the IDF said that it carried out a drone strike against a cell of terror operatives while they were preparing to carry out an attack against troops in Gaza and Israel “in the immediate timeframe.”
The military said the operatives were targeted while they were gathered at a former school in Gaza City. It added that it took steps to mitigate harm to civilians in the strike at the Yaffa boys school, which was being used to shelter displaced Palestinians.
People inspect the damage following an Israeli strike on the UNWRA Al-Majda Wasila Governmental School housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza City after the IDF said it found Hamas operatives inside the building, on December 14, 2024. (Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP)
Emergency services in Gaza reported that at least seven were killed, including a woman and her baby, and 12 were wounded as a result of the airstrike.
Rocket sirens were activated inside Israel, meanwhile, after a rocket launched from the central Gaza Strip struck an open area in the south of the country.
Sirens sounded in the border communities of Nirim and Ein Hashlosha amid the attack, which did not result in any injuries.
The rocket fire was the second such incident in two days, after the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group fired two projectiles toward Ashkelon on Friday.
Footage shows Hamas torture of Palestinian prisoners
On Saturday evening, the IDF released new security camera footage that it said was recovered at a Hamas prison in Gaza City’s upscale Rimal neighborhood, in which members of the Palestinian terror group’s internal security forces can be seen abusing prisoners.
In the video, the Hamas operatives can be seen escorting a blindfolded prisoner on his knees into the facility, before throwing him down a set of stairs and violently beating him.
The clip separately shows a prisoner lying on the ground in a small cell not much larger than his body. The military said that he was being held in a suffocating room while in solitary confinement.
צה”ל חושף תיעוד חדש מכלא העינויים של חמאס: פעילי הארגון מענים עצורים פלסטינים בכלא אל-כתיבה בעיר עזה; דובר צה”ל בערבית: “חמאס לא פחות אכזרי ממשטר אסד”@Doron_Kadosh pic.twitter.com/QPQA4E1vKt
— גלצ (@GLZRadio) December 14, 2024
Comparing Hamas’s treatment of prisoners to the actions of the regime of toppled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, the military said in a statement that Hamas “attempts to distance itself from the Assad regime and the atrocities exposed in Syrian prisons, but the footage and previous revelations about Hamas’s torture investigations leave no room for doubt — Hamas is equally ruthless.”
“The cruelty of Hamas prison guards exposed in this footage can no longer be hidden or denied. These harrowing videos are a stark reminder of the merciless abuse, oppression, and human rights violations inflicted on Gaza’s residents by the Hamas regime.”
The IDF has previously published CCTV footage that it says depicts the torture of Palestinian civilians at the hands of Hamas operatives, and in 2022, both the UN Watch Lobby and Human Rights Watch found that human rights activists, women, LGBTQ people and political opponents in Gaza and the West Bank were regularly subject to brutal punishment.
The war in Gaza erupted with Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 386. The toll includes a police officer killed in a hostage rescue mission and a Defense Ministry civilian contractor.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 44,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle as of November and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7, 2023, or in the following few days.
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