The Saudi Al-Hadath channel on Sunday reported that the target of an Israeli airstrike earlier in the day was Yahya al-Mabhouh, commander of the Nukhba company in Hamas's Northern Gaza Brigade.
Palestinian Arab media confirmed that al-Mabhouh’s name appeared among the list of casualties in the town of Az Zawayda, in central Gaza.
Al-Mabhouh was eliminated in a Sunday afternoon Israeli Air Force strike carried out in response to a serious security incident that occurred Sunday morning in the Rafah area.
According to available details, around 10:30 a.m., terrorists emerged from a tunnel and fired an anti-tank missile at an IDF engineering vehicle operating in the area. Shortly thereafter, sniper fire was directed at another vehicle, followed by additional gunfire targeting IDF forces in the area.
The IDF stated: “Earlier today (Sunday), terrorists fired an anti-tank missile and gunfire toward IDF troops operating to dismantle terrorist infrastructure in the Rafah area, in southern Gaza, in accordance with the ceasefire agreement. In response, the IDF has begun striking in the area to eliminate the threat and dismantle tunnel shafts and military structures used for terrorist activity. These terrorist actions constitute a blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement, and the IDF will respond firmly.”
In light of the developments, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and the Military Secretary left the weekly Cabinet meeting to conduct an urgent security assessment.
The Hamas terror organization, for its part, denied involvement in the incident, claiming: “We had no connection to the events in Rafah and no knowledge of them.”