By Ken Afor
The commander of the Hamas militants who invaded Southern Israel last Saturday and killed hundreds of Israelis has reportedly been killed, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The name of the Hamas leader was revealed to be Ali Qadi by the IDF in a tweet on Saturday.
It vowed to keep up the military campaign against Hamas until the group was completely destroyed.
“Ali Qadi led the inhumane, barbaric October 7 massacre of civilians in Israel.
“We just eliminated him. All Hamas terrorists will meet the same fate,” the IDF tweeted by its X page.
Israel reiterated its earlier warning (with an additional 6-hour window) on Saturday that all Palestinians residing in the northern part of Gaza should leave the area and move south as it gets ready to launch a ground offensive while pledging to destroy Hamas.
According to reports in foreign media, tens of thousands of Palestinians have already evacuated northern Gaza in response to the ultimatum.
However, the UN has maintained that a humanitarian catastrophe is likely to happen in Gaza and the nearby territories because it will be challenging for the 1 million Palestinians who currently reside in northern Gaza to relocate south within the allotted time.
Osama Hamdan, a spokesperson for Hamas, told Aljazeera on Saturday that the Israeli attack on Gaza was a response to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. Hamas had urged Palestinians to reject the Israeli ultimatum.
However, the Israeli government insisted that Hamas was to blame for its current offensive and that it was “brought upon us.”
According to Hamas, the attack on Israel on Saturday was in retaliation for the destruction of the al-Asqa mosque and the ongoing occupation of parts of Jerusalem.
Over 2,000 people have perished on both sides of the conflict—Israel and Palestine—as a result of the escalation.
