Israeli military officials are defending an airstrike they said targeted and killed a senior Hamas leader, even though it hit a densely populated area in Gaza.
Ibrahim Biari, a commander of Hamas's Central Jabaliyan Battalion, was killed in the strike on Tuesday, as were several other terrorists, according to Israel Defense Forces officials, while it also caused the terrorist group's underground tunnels to collapse, bringing down several nearby buildings. Biari, the IDF said, played an integral role in the unprecedented Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel that left roughly 1,400 people dead, the vast majority of whom were civilians.
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The area north of Jabalia is the largest such settlement in Gaza, according to the United Nations. The Hamas-controlled Health Ministry reported that dozens were killed in the strike.
“We struck an important military objective,” Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman for the IDF, said on CNN. “This Ibrahim Biyari, who was a battalion commander, was leading operations and fighting against Israel as he was targeted. He and many dozens of enemy combatants were in a tunnel complex underneath the ground, and we struck that tunnel complex, and that caused it to collapse. It’s our assessment that dozens of Hamas operatives were killed.”
Conricus also noted that Israel urged civilians in northern Gaza to evacuate south weeks ago. While the evacuation order was given to 1.1 million Gazans to keep them out of harm's way, Israel has launched strikes in the southern part of the territory, and international organizations expressed outrage at both the request and the feasibility of it at the time it was issued.
The strike represents a common occurrence in Israel's wars with Hamas over the last couple flare-ups. The terrorist group and de facto government of the Gaza Strip intentionally embeds itself within civilian communities, such as underneath a settlement, forcing Israel to risk and often incur civilian casualties or not attack. Hamas has also spent years creating a maze of tunnels to smuggle goods, keep weapons stockpiles, and to move freely without fear of Israel's military tracking them underneath populated areas.
The Gaza Health Ministry, which the Biden administration has said is not a trustworthy source despite few others in the tiny enclave, said on Wednesday that nearly 8,800 people have been killed, including more than 3,600 children, since the war broke out following the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks. That morning, thousands of terrorists from Gaza overwhelmed Israel's border and proceeded to massacre roughly 260 people at an outdoor music festival, while other terrorists slaughtered entire families in their homes in the communities near Gaza.
"What’s harsh is the way Hamas is using people as human shields. What’s harsh is taking a couple of hundred hostages and leaving families anxious, waiting, and worrying to figure out where their loved ones are. What’s harsh is dropping in on a music festival and slaughtering a bunch of young people just trying to enjoy an afternoon. I can go on and on. That’s what’s harsh. That is what’s harsh," National Security Council coordinator John Kirby said last week. "And being honest about the fact that there have been civilian casualties and that there likely will be more is being honest, because that’s what war is. It’s brutal. It’s ugly. It’s messy. I’ve said that before."
Israel has begun the second phase of its war, a ground invasion of northern Gaza to rid Hamas of its capabilities to conduct attacks against Israelis.
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United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that he was “deeply alarmed by the intensification of the conflict” and noted that international humanitarian law “is not an a la carte menu and cannot be applied selectively.”
Over the course of Israel's aerial campaign in Gaza over the last couple weeks, which has resulted in the deaths of likely thousands of civilians, Hamas has also continued firing thousands of rockets into Israeli territory.