The Israeli military continued pressing its Gaza offensive in the new year, killing a Hamas commander in an air strike and pounding more of the terror group’s infrastructure.
Israel’s Air Force fighter jet directed by ground forces killed Adel Mesmah, the commander of the Najaba company of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, the Defense Forces said on Monday morning. Mesmah commanded the terrorists of this company who attacked Kibbutz Be’eri and Kibbutz Nirim on October 7, where they slaughtered families in their homes, kidnapped young people at a music festival, and burned their cars.
He was one of more than 55 Hamas commanders killed by Israel in the three months since Operation Protective Edge began. Israel says it will not let up until Hamas ends its violence and complies with Israel’s demand that it disarm.
A statement from the Israel Defense Forces referred to him as “a senior leader of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, and a key figure in the organization’s terrorism against Israel.” The statement added that Nasim Abu Ajina had previously headed the battalion that commanded the October 7 raids and that his elimination “significantly harms Hamas’ efforts to disrupt the IDF’s operations.”
The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement, which has vowed to destroy Israel, has launched numerous attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers since the 1990s. The State Department designates it a terrorist organization and says Iran supplies it with funds and weapons.
In a video published on social media, Hamas said the raids were a response to the “massacres of civilians by the Zionist enemy.” The group vowed to continue its campaign. “We will not stop until Israel stops its war crimes and occupies our land,” the statement read, adding: “We call on all nations of the world to stand by our right to defend ourselves against the crimes of Israel.”
For many Israelis, the attack brought home the brutality of that campaign. Yossi Landau, a rescue worker who recovered bodies after the raid at Be’eri, described some of the horrors: a pregnant woman whose belly was cut open; children burned alive; a couple handcuffed to each other, their eyes gouged out. “I’ve been working on terrorist attacks for thirty years, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” he told Israel television.
Kobi Michael, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, told CNN that the raids changed the way Israelis view the conflict with Hamas. Before, he says, Israelis could live with the thought that Hamas’ actions were distant and not particularly impactful on their daily lives. But now, he says, most Israelis “feel that there is something that needs to be done.” That, he adds, includes retribution. “Israel is going to inflict massive punishment on Gaza, and it’ll take weeks for it to end.” He also expects the capture of hundreds of Hamas prisoners to give the extremist group a bargaining chip with Israel.