GAZA – Suddenly, Israeli warplanes launched concentrated and simultaneous raids, killing three senior commanders of the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip.

Gazans woke up at two o'clock in the morning on Tuesday, to the sounds of huge explosions that shook the cities of Gaza and Rafah on the border with Egypt in the southern Gaza Strip, and it turned out that they targeted the homes of military leaders in the Jerusalem Brigades, and led to their martyrdom accompanied by their wives and a number of their children, and other citizens.

In a military statement, the Al-Quds Brigades mourned its three martyrs: the martyr Jihad Shaker al-Ghannam, secretary of the military council, the martyr Khalil Salah al-Bahtini, a member of the military council and commander of the northern region, and the martyr Tariq Ezz al-Din, one of the commanders of the military action of the Al-Quds Brigades in the West Bank.

"As we mourn our martyrs leaders and their wives and a number of their sons, we confirm that the blood of the martyrs will increase our resolve, and we will not leave our positions, and the resistance will continue, God willing," the Saraya said.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the Israeli raids resulted in the death of 13 civilians and the injury of 20 others, in an indefinite death toll.

Who are the targeted leaders?

  • Jihad Shaker Ghannam: Born to a refugee family from the city of Ashdod during the Nakba in 1948, and lived in a refugee camp in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, at the beginning of his sixth decade. An Israeli airstrike targeted his home in the "Geneina neighborhood" northeast of Rafah, killing him and his wife.Ghannam joined the ranks of Islamic Jihad early in his life, joined the Al-Quds Brigades and rose through leadership positions, until he became its secretary, accompanied by the commander of its Southern Brigade, Khaled Mansour, who was assassinated by Israel in an airstrike that targeted a house where he was holed up west of Rafah in August last year. The occupation army accuses Ghannam of occupying senior positions in the military wing of Islamic Jihad, and considers him responsible for coordinating and transferring money and weapons between the Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).


    The beloved and great leader rose in the Jerusalem Brigades, the martyr Haj #خليل_البهتيني Abu Hadi. #غزة pic.twitter.com/k7soHLe7VU

    — Abdulrahman Al-Hasani (@alhasaniabed) May 9, 2023

  • The martyr Khalil Salah al-Bahtini: In his fourth decade, sources in his movement say that he showed military and security capabilities that qualified him to join the Al-Quds Brigades and progress in important leadership positions, and he was targeted by an air strike with his family in their home in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood, northeast of Gaza City. Al-Bahtini took over the command of the northern region of the Al-Quds Brigades from the martyr Bahaa Abu al-Ata, who was martyred with his wife in an Israeli assassination operation targeting him inside his home in the Shujaiya neighborhood east of Gaza City in November 2019, while al-Bahtini had survived several previous Israeli attempts to assassinate him. Israel began inciting him early, placing him on the list of targets, and holding him responsible for rocket fire on Israeli settlements, most notably a rocket shot down by the Iron Dome system in December 2020, which thwarted a conference held at the time by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to Israeli security reports, during the last decade, al-Bahtini has been included in leadership ranks within the Al-Quds Brigades, and has a distinguished and effective relationship with the political leadership of the Islamic Jihad movement, and was part of its delegation participating in meetings in the Egyptian capital Cairo with the Egyptian General Intelligence. The Israeli army accuses al-Bahtini of planning attacks deep inside Israel and firing rockets in the near future. Khalil was preceded by his brother Mohammed, born in 1980, who joined the ranks of the Al-Quds Brigades in 2005 and was killed in 2006 by an airstrike while confronting Israeli forces that penetrated into the "Al-Shaaf neighborhood" northeast of Gaza City.

Tariq Muhammad Ezzedine, his daughter Mayar and his son Ali (a prisoner liberated from Arraba deported to Gaza),
one of the commanders of the military action in the Jerusalem district in the West Bank. pic.twitter.com/rrtVyWpP85

— Z 𓂆 (@jalestinian2) May 9, 2023

The deported martyr

The third martyr in the assassination was Tariq Ibrahim Ezz El-Din (50 years old), and an Israeli air strike targeted the apartment he lives with his family and children in Gaza City, where he was deported after being released from Israeli prisons as part of the "Wafa al-Ahrar deal" (Shalit deal) in 2011.

Ezz El-Din hails from the town of Araba, south of Jenin in the West Bank, and joined the Islamic Jihad movement early, and was arrested several times in Israeli prisons, most recently in a special operation in 2000 after a period of pursuit, and sentenced to life imprisonment in addition to 10 years and 8 months.

The occupation army considers the martyr Izz al-Din responsible for strengthening the relationship between the Islamic Jihad in Gaza and the West Bank, transferring funds, and directing attacks against targets inside Israel from Gaza. He is a native of Sheikh Khader Adnan, who was martyred in Israel's Ramle prison a week ago, after 86 days of hunger strike for freedom.

Emergency and unknown hours

In conjunction with the assassination raids, the Israeli occupation army announced the launch of a military operation on Gaza called "Defensive Arrow", and the tightening of the closure of the Gaza Strip by closing the Beit Hanoun "Erez" crossing, which is designated for the movement of people and humanitarian cases, and the only commercial crossing for goods and humanitarian aid.

With this escalation, Israel violated a truce that stopped hours of escalation on the second of this month, following the martyrdom of prisoner Khader Adnan, a leader of the Islamic Jihad movement, in his solitary cell, following an 87-day hunger strike, which he fought in search of freedom.

The state of emergency hangs over both sides of the security fence surrounding the Gaza Strip. While Israel announced the closure of schools and the disruption of trains in the so-called "Gaza periphery settlements" and urged settlers to stay close to shelters, the Government Information Office in Gaza announced the suspension of working hours in educational institutions until further notice, and the reduction of working hours in other government institutions to a minimum.

In separate statements, the resistance factions mourned the martyrs and condemned the assassination, describing it as "treacherous and cowardly," and vowing that the blood of the martyrs would not be wasted.