The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, claimed responsibility in a statement on Sunday for yesterday’s infiltration from Lebanon towards Israel and announced that 3 of its fighters were killed after they managed to “penetrate into” Israel.
The group said its fighters managed to blow the border fence between the two countries and target the surveillance and access point inside occupied Palestine.
Clashes with Israeli forces caused losses on both sides, added Hamas, explaining that an Israeli aircraft targeted its fighters “during the clash” which led to their death, the Agence France-Presse reported.
On Saturday, for the second consecutive day, armed groups tried to infiltrate into Israel from Lebanon. The Israeli army said it detected “a terrorist commando trying to enter Israeli territory from Lebanon,” and that an Israeli patrol opened gunfire killing many of them.
Israeli army spokesman Avichai Adraee said Sunday that warplanes were able to kill Bilal al-Qudra, the commander of an elite Hamas unit in Khan Yunis, who was said to have been responsible for an attack by the movement in Nirim and Nir-Oz, according to the Arab World News Agency.
“Under the intelligence guidance of the Shin Bet, warplanes were able to eliminate the so-called Bilal al-Qudra, commander of Hamas’ elite unit in the South Khan Yunis Battalion... A number of other activists in (Hamas) and (Islamic Jihad) were also eliminated,” Adraee said on X platform.
The spokesman stated that the Israeli army raided more than 100 targets last night in Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, Khan Yunis, and western Jabalia to weaken Hamas’ capabilities.