RYAN ROBERTSON: One of the Hamas commanders who led a deadly assault on an Israeli kibbutz during the October 7th attacks is dead. The IDF killed him in an airstrike. 

Israeli fighter jets struck and killed multiple top Hamas commanders in Gaza this week, including Majdi Aqilan.

Aquilan was one of the commanders who led Hamas’s attack on Kibbutz Nahal Oz in southern Israel on October 7th last year. Hamas killed 60 Israeli soldiers and 15 civilians there, taking eight more hostage.

Nearly 1,200 people died in Hamas’s attacks that day.

The Israeli government considers the latest strike another step forward in its war in Gaza as it tries to dismantle Hamas. 

International organizations including the U.N. condemned Israel for continuing its war. Impartial estimates are hard to come by. According to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, an estimated 44,000 Palestinians were killed there since last October.

The killing of Aqilan follows Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza in October, and the death of his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh in an apparent Israeli attack in Iran in July.

The Israeli military said two of the other Hamas commanders killed in this week’s strikes include a tunnel specialist also involved in the Nahal Oz attack, as well as a battalion commander involved in other October 7th kidnappings.

For Straight Arrow News, I’m Ryan Robertson.

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