Israel claims head of Hamas military wing killed in Gaza strike

Israel says it has killed Mohammed Odeh, the leader of Hamas’s military wing in Gaza, in an air strike in the northern part of the strip, as a fragile “ceasefire” comes under growing strain. Israeli authorities said on Wednesday that Odeh was killed in an attack the previous day in Gaza City. Recommended Stories list of 3 items end of list There was no immediate comment from the Palestinian group. Odeh, a former Hamas intelligence chief, reportedly succeeded Izz al-Din al-Haddad as the head of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian group, after the latter was killed in an Israeli strike earlier this month, although Hamas did not officially confirm the appointment. “The commander of Hamas terror organisation’s military arm number 4 in Gaza was eliminated yesterday and sent to meet his partners in the depths of hell,” Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X on Wednesday. Katz and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said Israeli forces had targeted Odeh in an attack. In a statement, the Israeli army also confirmed the killing of Odeh and said the attack “followed months of intelligence monitoring aimed at tracking the movements of Odeh and his operatives”. A source at al-Shifa Hospital told Al Jazeera that six people were killed and 20 others wounded in Israeli attacks late on Tuesday on the Remal neighbourhood in the western part of Gaza City. …