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3 Top Hamas Commanders Are Buried in Gaza Israel Kills 3 Top Hamas Leaders, Securing Upper Hand in Fighting
(about 4 hours later)
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — About 10,000 mourners on Thursday buried three senior commanders of the armed wing of Hamas who were killed in a predawn airstrike by Israel, the most significant blow to the group’s leadership since Israel’s operation in Gaza began more than six weeks ago. JERUSALEM — Hamas is the party that keeps extending this summer’s bloody battle in the Gaza Strip, repeatedly breaking temporary truces and vowing to endlessly fire rockets into Israel until its demands are met. But the latest round of fighting appears to have given Israel the upper hand in a conflict that has already outlasted all expectations and is increasingly becoming a war of attrition.
“Oh, beloved Qassam, strike, strike Tel Aviv,” some chanted, referring to the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, as the body of Mohammed Barhoum, 45, was carried on a red stretcher to a mosque here in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. A man who gave his name only as Abu Mohammed said of the most senior of the three slain leaders, Mohammed Abu Shamalah, 41, “All Rafah loves him — all Gaza.” Barrages of rockets from Gaza sailed into Israel nearly nonstop on Thursday, but they did little damage, and a Hamas threat against Ben-Gurion International Airport failed to materialize. Israel, meanwhile, killed three top commanders of Hamas’s armed wing in predawn airstrikes, and by afternoon had called up 10,000 reservists, perhaps in preparation for a further escalation but in any case a show of strength.
The attack, which also killed the father of a human rights advocate and at least two children, followed Israel’s assassination attempt Tuesday night on Mohammed Deif, the chief of Hamas’s military operations who has topped Israel’s most-wanted list for years. Mr. Deif’s fate remains unknown, but on Thursday the body of his 3-year-old daughter, Sara, was recovered from the rubble of the Gaza City home where five one-ton bombs also killed his wife, baby son, and at least three others. Israel’s advantage has never looked more lopsided. In contrast to the earlier phase of the war, Israel this week deployed its extensive intelligence capabilities and overwhelming firepower in targeted bombings with limited civilian casualties less likely to raise the world’s ire.
It was also unclear whether the back-to-back attacks on Hamas commanders indicated a shift in Israeli strategy or simply a seizing of opportunity after the men emerged from underground bunkers during the recent halt in hostilities after a month of fierce fighting that began July 8. But Israeli analysts said the targeting of such leaders had both tactical and morale-breaking ramifications for Gaza-based militants, and provided the Israeli public with a tangible achievement without drawing the world’s wrath over civilian casualties. Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian faction that dominates Gaza, buried some of its most beloved and effective leaders while launching largely futile homemade rockets from its depleted stock.
“It’s not that they’re not going to function, they will function, but it’s still a blow to Hamas — these people are senior people, they carry responsibilities, it’s not easy to replace them,” said Michael Herzog, a retired brigadier general in Israel and a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “These are more quality targets than just merely taking out junior guys. People in Gaza know exactly who they are, people in Israel know exactly who they are. In our bilateral context, it resonates strongly.” “There’s a longstanding conventional wisdom that Israel doesn’t do well in wars of attrition,” said Michael B. Oren, an Israeli historian and a former ambassador to the United States. “That overlooks a broader historical view that Israel’s entire existence has been a war of attrition, and we’ve won that war.”
The strike came on the second day of renewed violence after the collapse of Egyptian-brokered cease-fire talks that had halted hostilities for nearly nine days, in what many saw as a new phase of the conflict. They also followed the first direct claim of responsibility by a Hamas leader — Salah el-Aruri, who is based in Turkey — for the June 12 abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank, an event that many see as one of the triggers of the Israel-Gaza escalation. The long-term impact of the strikes against the Hamas commanders, which followed an attempted assassination of the head of the armed wing on Tuesday night, may be limited. Hamas waged its fiercest fight ever this summer despite Israel’s 2012 hit on the director of day-to-day military operations.
On Thursday afternoon, Israel called up 10,000 reservists, in preparation for another possible expansion of the operation. Most of the 86,000 reservists who had been mobilized in July were let go during the temporary cease-fire. But in killing Hamas militant leaders responsible for years of headline-grabbing attacks, including the 2006 abduction of Sgt. Gilad Shalit, Israel dealt a profound psychological blow to the enemy while giving the home front something clear to celebrate.
Hamas, the Islamist movement that dominates Gaza, said in a statement that the three commanders represented the “founding generation” of the Qassam Brigades, and “fed pain to the enemy for more than 20 years.” Raed Attar, who was born in 1974, led Qassam’s Rafah brigade and was known as “the blond," was killed along with Mr. Abu Shamalah, the chief of Qassam’s southern division whose nickname was “the fox,” and Mr. Barhoum – “the white-haired” or “the old” — who Hamas said was among Israel’s first wanted men, starting in 1992. “These are senior people,” said Michael Herzog, a retired Israeli brigadier general and fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “People in Gaza know exactly who they are, people in Israel know exactly who they are. In our bilateral context, it resonates strongly.”
Mr. Attar and Mr. Abu Shamalah sat on Qassam’s elite military council, led by Mr. Deif, and were involved in the 2006 abduction of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who was held for five years and later exchanged for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Mr. Attar was shown leading Sergeant Shalit by the arm from a pickup truck in a video during his release in 2011. Even more significant would be the death of Mohammed Deif, the shadowy figure who has survived several previous Israeli assassination attempts with severe injuries and was the target of Tuesday night’s attack. Mr. Deif’s fate remained unknown Thursday, though the body of his 3-year-old daughter, Sara, was recovered from the rubble of the Gaza City home where five one-ton bombs also killed Mr. Deif’s wife, baby son and at least three others.
A statement from the Israeli military said Mr. Attar had also been involved in smuggling weapons into Gaza, that he had constructed tunnels into Israeli territory, and that he had plotted attacks from the Sinai Peninsula. Mr. Abu Shamalah, the statement said, orchestrated the July 17 tunnel incursion near Kibbutz Sufa that led to Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza, and was involved in a 2008 attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza that wounded 13 soldiers. He was also linked to a tunnel explosion that killed six Israeli soldiers in 2004, and to the killing in 1994 of an Israeli officer in Rafah. Amos Yadlin, a former Israeli chief of military intelligence, called the killing of Mr. Deif’s three deputies “a very important operational achievement” and said that if Mr. Deif also turns up dead, “this will badly hurt Hamas’s military wing.”
“These are two senior terrorists that have been in our sights for the last 15 years,” Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman, said in an interview. “Clearly it’s part of their chain of command, it’s a part of their decision-making process, it’s a part of their force-leading capabilities, it’s a part of their motivation. I think it sends a clear message that nobody has any sort of immunity when carrying out terrorist attacks against us.” “This is a complex campaign and there is no such thing as a knockout, or a silver bullet that will put Hamas out of commission,” cautioned Mr. Yadlin, director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. “We’re now going to a war of attrition that was a threat of Hamas. Israel basically turned it upside down and said, ‘You want attrition? You are welcome. You lost your strategic military tools against Israel. Our firepower and our intelligence and our capability to sustain more days is much bigger than yours.’ This is the strategy.”
But Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, called the attack “a big Israeli crime that will not succeed in breaking our people’s will,” adding in a statement, “Israel will pay the price.” The Gaza Health Ministry said Israeli airstrikes had killed at least 60 people since the collapse on Tuesday of cease-fire negotiations in Cairo and the resumption of violence after nearly nine days of quiet, bringing the Palestinian death toll in the operation that began July 8 close to 2,100.
Barrages of rockets from Gaza continued throughout the day, most landing in southern Israel. A man was wounded by a mortar shell as he helped usher children into a shelter, Israeli officials said. About 40 of the more than 250 rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since Tuesday afternoon were intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system, according to Israel’s military, while most of the others hit open areas, causing little damage. Several of Thursday’s attacks targeted men on motorcycles or in cars who Israel said were militants, though Palestinian witnesses also reported that five people, three of them children, were killed while watering a Gaza City garden, and five others while digging a grave in the Sheikh Radwan cemetery.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday afternoon Israeli airstrikes had killed 58 people over the past two days, bringing the Palestinian death toll since the onset of the operation to nearly 2,100. On the Israeli side, 64 soldiers and three civilians, one a foreign laborer, have been killed. Returning to a limited air campaign after weeks of a ground assault in which 64 of its soldiers were killed in surprisingly strong challenges by Hamas fighters, Israel was able to avoid the large-scale collateral damage that has provoked international outrage.
Witnesses said a drone-fired missile killed five people as they dug a grave at the Sheikh Radwan cemetery in Gaza City. Another five, three of them children, from the Rafi family, were felled while watering a garden in Gaza City, according to Ahmed Zaytonia, a neighbor, who said he found a hose still running among the flowers and trees when he ran to the spot upon hearing the strike. The Israeli military said that more than 300 rockets were fired from Gaza over 48 hours, one of the most intense barrages of the battle so far, sending rattled residents of southern cities once again scrambling for shelter. Though Israel’s education minister announced that school would start as scheduled Sept. 1, the mayor of Ashkelon, less than 10 miles from Gaza, said he would not allow schools in his city to open under fire.
Among the other reported deaths: two men in a car on Gaza City’s Al Nasser Street; a 40-year-old on a motorcycle in Khan Younis; a father and son in Beit Lahiya; two adults in the central Gaza Strip. With Israel and the Palestinians apparently still far apart on terms for a durable truce, analysts suggested settling in for days or even weeks more of cross-border air exchanges, after what is already the longest Israeli military operation in decades. Diplomatic pressure appeared to be easing, if only because the world’s attention seems focused on other crises including the rise of Islamic extremists in Iraq and Syria, the Ebola outbreak in Africa and civil unrest in Ferguson, Mo.
Witnesses said the home where the Hamas commanders were killed, in the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood in west Rafah, was reduced to rubble by multiple bombs dropped around 3 a.m. The home belonged to the Kulab family, the witnesses said, and several other houses on the block were badly damaged. As the conflict grinds on, Israelis see time as on their side. Experts estimate that Hamas began the summer with a stockpile of about 10,000 rockets. It has fired nearly 4,000, according to the Israeli military, which says it has taken out at least 3,000 more. So it cannot keep launching at this pace for long.
Among the 10 people killed was Hassan Younis, 75, whose son, Issam, is the director of Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, which has been documenting the death and destruction throughout the summer. Mahmud Abu Rahma, who works at the center, called it “an Israeli criminal attack” in a Facebook post on Thursday. Israel has much vaster resources, though its politicians and people are increasingly fractured over the prosecution of the campaign. There are growing calls for a more aggressive ground invasion, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted, and intense opposition to the idea of making concessions in a cease-fire agreement that might seem to reward Hamas.
“Issam has been working hard to save life his way, and to comfort and support our colleagues and friends who were killed or lost family members during this ongoing crisis,” Mr. Abu Rahma said. “We are saddened as well as angered by this loss and support Issam in his ordeal.” “His hope is that he can avoid those two things by essentially continuing an air campaign while Hamas fires rockets,” said Nathan Thrall, co-author of a recent International Crisis Group report on Gaza. “Israel can play that game for a long time, certainly longer than Hamas can. That’s true on a purely military level, but the fact is, as the war drags on, it’s going to be harder and harder for Netanyahu not to do one of those two things.”
Many shops in Rafah closed for the funerals of the three Hamas commanders, and the police shut the streets around Al Awda mosque in the center of the city, where some mourners in the overflow crowd used Hamas and Qassam flags as prayer rugs. “This is a painful loss,” said a 39-year-old who would identify himself only as Abu Nuqira. “They are the symbols of resistance.” In Gaza, time is a liability. The number of displaced residents seeking shelter in United Nations schools swelled to nearly 300,000 as the violence resumed; officials have already given up any hope of classes starting Sunday as planned.
Mr. Abu Shamalah’s 11-year-old daughter, Roba, barefoot and in a black head scarf, was crying as she recalled the last time she saw her father — June 28, the first day of Ramadan, when they broke their fast with a soup made from mulukhiya, a leaf also called Jew’s mallow. His friend Abu Mohammed, 55, said Mr. Abu Shamalah had told him before the war began that “he hoped to be a martyr,” and that he and Mr. Attar “lived together and we will die together.” Analysts said the recent halt in hostilities had made the leaders of Hamas’s Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades vulnerable, as they left the safety of underground bunkers.
The fate of Mr. Deif was still unknown on Thursday. It was unclear whether he was with his wife and children in the house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza when it was flattened by five one-ton bombs. Mr. Deif is approaching 50 and sustained severe injuries in several previous Israeli assassination attempts. In a statement, Hamas said that the three commanders were part of Qassam’s “founding generation” and had “fed pain to the enemy for more than 20 years.” Killed were Mohammed Abu Shamalah, who was the head of Qassam’s southern division and known as “the Fox”; Raed Attar, nicknamed “the Blonde” and in charge of the Rafah brigade; and Mohammed Barhoum — “the White-Haired,” or “the Old” — who had been on Israel’s most-wanted list for two decades.
A photograph purporting to be of Mr. Deif’s death certificate has appeared on social media and was reported by a Palestinian news agency on Thursday, but Ashraf al-Qedra, a spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza, called it a forgery. Mr. Qedra initially reported on Tuesday on his Facebook page that three people, including a woman and child, had been killed in the attack, but on Wednesday he removed that post and denied that Mr. Deif was among the dead. When Sergeant Shalit was exchanged for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in October 2011 after Hamas held him in captivity for five years, it was Mr. Attar seen in a video ushering him from a pickup truck. Mr. Abu Shamalah, the Israeli military said, was also involved in a 2004 tunnel attack that killed six soldiers, and the 1994 murder of an Israeli officer in Rafah.
Whatever Mr. Deif’s fate, the attempt to target him has provoked a debate among military analysts in Israel over the value of a campaign to assassinate Hamas leaders. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, called the killing of the Qassam commanders “a big Israeli crime that will not succeed in breaking our people’s will,” and promised, “Israel will pay the price.”
Yossi Yehoshua, a military correspondent for the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, called the attempted attack on Mr. Deif “the high point in the weekslong fighting,” in the newspaper on Thursday. But a 39-year-old mourner who would identify himself only as Abu Nuqira acknowledged, “This is a painful loss — they are the symbols of resistance.”
But Yossi Melman, writing in the Israeli daily Maariv, said assassinations “do not affect the balance of power in the long term.” In the Rafah refugee camp, a friend of Mr. Abu Shamalah’s said he had last seen him at the onset of the war, with Mr. Attar, and that he had said then he hoped to be a martyr.
Israeli officials acknowledge that the Qassam Brigades expanded their rocket-manufacturing capabilities, built dozens of tunnels infiltrating Israeli territory and improved their fighting capabilities after the 2012 assassination of Ahmed Jabari, who had been running the armed wing’s day-to-day operations. “I told them, how do you stay together under these circumstances?” recalled the friend, who gave his name as Abu Mohammed and said he was 55. “He said that we lived together and we will die together.”
“Deif’s possible elimination will not have a decisive influence on the battle between Hamas and Israel,” Mr. Melman said. “A suitable replacement will also be found for him.”