Israel-Hamas update: Senior Hamas leader who 'took a big part' in massacre last weekend killed in Israeli airstrike

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Saturday it has killed a senior member of the Hamas terror group in an overnight airstrike in the Gaza Strip, reported The Times of Israel.

According to the IDF, the airstrike killed Murad Abu Murad, the head of Hamas’s aerial array. The strike targeted the headquarters from which the terror group managed its aerial activity.

Abu Murad “took a big part in directing terrorists during the massacre” last weekend, which included attackers who entered Israel from the air on hang gliders, IDF said, according to the report.

The IDF said it hit dozens of sites belonging to Hamas’s commando forces, who led the infiltration into Israel on October 7, in separate strikes overnight.

Hamas militants based in the Gaza Strip blasted through the Israeli security fence and streamed into Israel by land, air and sea on Saturday, in what is now described as an unprecedented attack.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in response launched multiple attacks targeting Hamas' key infrastructure. So far, over 2,000 people have been killed in Israel and the Gaza Strip in the biggest escalation in decades between the two sides.

More than a million people in the northern Gaza Strip have been ordered to evacuate to the south as the latest Israel-Hamas war entered its seventh day Friday and Israel appeared to be preparing a ground offensive, reported Associated Press. Hamas urged residents to stay put.

The orders sent panic through civilians and aid workers already struggling under Israeli airstrikes and a blockade of the Hamas-ruled area.

International aid groups warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis after Israel prevented the entry of supplies from Egypt to Gaza’s 2.3 million people.

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