Israel Neutralizes Islamic Jihad Rocket Program Commander
Israel says it has assassinated Ali Hassan Muhammad Ghali, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) rocket unit’s senior commander in the Gaza Strip. Ghali was killed in a predawn airstrike Thursday morning on a residential building in the Sheikh Hamad neighborhood of Khan Younis.
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said the military carried out a precision strike on a building in the southern Gaza Strip, where Ghali was hiding, in a joint IDF and Shin Bet operation.
After the attack, PIJ issued a statement saying it “mourns its martyr and commander, Ali Hassan Muhammad Ghali, the head of the al-Quds rocket array, who was killed in a treacherous Zionist operation in Khan Yunis.”
PIJ also confirmed that Ghali was killed along with two other senior Islamic Jihad commanders. Earlier unconfirmed reports identified them as Ghali’s brother, Mahmoud Hassan Muhammed Ghali, and Mahmud Walid Abdul Jawad. All three were members of the organization’s military council.
Israel considers the PIJ, a Palestinian Islamist paramilitary organization formed in 1981, to be even more extreme than Hamas in its operational methods and commitment to the Jewish state’s destruction.
The Gaza-based armed wing of PIJ, the Al-Quds Brigades, has strongholds in the West Bank cities of Hebron and Jenin, and its operations have included suicide bombings, attacks on Israeli civilians, and the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel. PIJ has been designated a terrorist organization by the US, EU, UK, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel.
