Five members of the Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, were killed on Saturday in an Israel raid on their position to the west of Rafah city south of the Gaza Strip.
Sources in the armed wing said that the Israeli raid wounded five others, noting that among the martyrs was a senior commander in the Quds Brigades.
Abu Ahmed, the spokesman for the armed wing, told the PIC that the “crime” would not pass unpunished, adding that the Israeli warplanes fired two missiles at the position with the clear intention to kill all those inside.
The spokesman said in a separate statement that the armed wing has declared a state of alert, promising a strong retaliatory strike.
He pointed out that the commander Ahmed Sheikh Khalil, who was killed in the raid, was targeted on five past occasions by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) and in one such attempt his right hand was amputated. He recalled that four of the commander’s brothers were also killed at the hands of the IOF.
For his part, Abu Obaida, the spokesman for the Qassam Brigades the armed wing of Hamas, held the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) fully responsible for consequences of its crime.
He said that the Palestinian resistance factions were consulting on means of responding to that crime, charging the IOA with trying to spoil the Palestinian people’s joy with the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in the recent exchange deal.
An Israeli man was injured in a series of retaliatory rocket attacks by the Quds Brigades and other armed wings on Saturday evening that targeted Asdod and Yibna cities, occupied since 1948, to the north of the Gaza Strip.
