IAF pilots killed Hamas Interior Minister Said Siyam and his brother, Ayad, in an air strike on the latter's Gaza City home Thursday afternoon. IDF sources said the home was located in the Jabaliya neighborhood.
Flash 90; 'Blue Eye'
At least 20 other terrorists were injured in the strike, according to Palestinian Authority sources.
The strike was carried out after the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) confirmed that Siyam was in the building and that there were no civilians nearby.
Siyam, 50, was the official who led the Hamas seizure of Gaza in June 2007 and was responsible for the formation and development of the group's special executive force. He was also considered the political liaison with the group's military division, and with Damascus-based Hamas political chief Khaled Masha'al.
He is the most senior Hamas terrorist assassinated by Israel since April 2004, when Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi was killed.
Blue Eye
Blue Eye
Siyam's brother Ayad was the head of the Hamas terrorist organization's security division, along with Salah Abu Sharah, who was also killed in the strike.
A day earlier, the IDF bombed the home of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who authorized the takeover of Gaza. Wednesday night, IDF forces also struck a building near the southern Gaza home of senior Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al-Zahar. Five of his bodyguards were killed in the strike.
IAF pilots killed one of the top five Hamas leaders in Gaza two weeks ago in a strike dropped a one-ton bomb on the home of Sheikh Nizar Rayyan, the successor to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin after the Hamas spiritual leader was assassinated in 2004.
Rayyan organized and paid for the 2004 suicide bombing in Ashdod in which 10 people were murdered. Three years earlier, in October 2001 he had sent his own son to carry out a suicide bombing in the Gush Katif community of Elei Sinai. Two Jewish residents of Gaza were murdered in the attack.
In addition to Rayyan, 18 others were killed in the strike, which was carried out in the first week of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.
