GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories, Nov 26, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - The military
wing of Hamas said Sunday that the commander of its northern brigade and four
other senior leaders had been killed during Israel's offensive against the
Islamist movement.

In a statement, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said Ahmed al-Ghandour was a
member of its military council, and named three of the others, among them
Ayman Siyyam, head of its rocket division, while its West Bank branch
confirmed another leader's death.

"We pledge to Allah we will continue their path and that their blood will be
a light for the mujahedeen and a fire for the occupiers," the statement said,
without saying when they were killed.

The Israeli army confirmed it had killed "five senior commanders".

It identified Ghandour as "a leading figure in the planning and execution of
the October 7 massacre" when Hamas militants stormed into Israel, killing
1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping some 240 others, according to
an Israeli count.

Since then, Israel has waged a huge military campaign that Gaza's Hamas
rulers say has killed nearly 15,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians.

The army said Ghandour headed one of the Hamas military wing's five regional
brigades in the Gaza Strip.

He was "responsible for directing all Hamas's terror activities" in northern
Gaza, and had initiated "shootings, bombings and rocket launches" as well as
attacks in the West Bank.

It identified Siyyam as a senior figure who headed Hamas's rockets division
for "approximately 15 years".

Wael Rajab, described as Ghandour's deputy and the former police chief in
northern Gaza, had also been killed, it said, as had Raafat Salman, a senior
operative in Qassam's Gaza City Brigade involved in planning the motorised
glider infiltration on October 7.

The fifth dead commander, Farsan Khalifa, was a senior operative with Hamas's
West Bank headquarters who "aided and was close to" its Gaza leadership, it
added.

The Israeli army said Ghandour, Siyyam and Khalifa were killed in the same
strike, without saying where or when it took place.

- 'More than 50' -

Last week, a senior Israeli military official said troops had killed "more
than 50" Hamas commanders causing "significant" harm to the capacity of the
military wing, which the official estimated to have around 24,000 fighters.

Ghandour -- whose nom de guerre was Abu Anas -- was put on a US economic
sanctions blacklist in 2017 as a "global terrorist".

The State Department said at the time he was a member of Hamas's political
bureau, as well as a former member of its Shura council, which groups its
leaders from Gaza, the West Bank and overseas.

It said he had been involved in "many terrorist operations" including a 2006
attack on the Kerem Shalom border crossing which killed two Israeli soldiers
and wounded four others and led to the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad
Shalit, who was held by Hamas for five years.

He was freed in 2011 in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners.

- 'Significant harm' -

The senior Israeli military official said troops had caused significant
damage to Hamas's fighting force -- made up of 24 battalions of 1,000
militants each -- notably in the north.

"In some (battalions), we eliminated hundreds of Hamas terrorists and most of
the battalion commanders," he said.

"This harm is significant, it dismantles the ability of Hamas to fight right
now, but also the ability to rehabilitate its military power after the war."

He did not give a number of militants killed but said it was in the several
thousands: "not 10,000, not 1,000, something in the middle".

The Hamas announcement Sunday came on the third day of a four-day pause in
the fighting during which Hamas has handed back 26 Israeli hostages, all
women and children, in two batches as well as 15 foreign nationals, mostly
Thais.
In return for the Israeli hostages, Israel has freed 78 Palestinian
prisoners, all of them women and teenagers.