Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Iranian terror subsidiary in the Gaza Strip, confirmed on Tuesday evening “with great pride and honor” that its spokesman Naji Abu Saif, known as “Abu Hamza,” was killed in Israeli strike that day.
The terror group referred in the post on its Telegram channel to the spokesman’s death as a “martyrdom.”
Earlier on Tuesday, sources within the terrorist group told Reuters and Arab news outlets that Abu Hamza had been killed in an Israeli Air Force strike on a residential home in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip.
The IDF announced early on Tuesday morning that it launched “extensive” strikes against terror targets in Gaza. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said the military was acting after Hamas rebuffed several proposals from U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and others.
“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. The goal of the campaign remains to achieve “the objectives of the war as they have been determined by the political echelon, including the release of all of our hostages, the living and the deceased,” it added.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists participated in the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border massacre in southern Israel, in which 1,200 people, mostly Jewish Israeli civilians, were murdered, thousands more were wounded and 251 were kidnapped back to the Gaza Strip as hostages.
Ziad Nakhaleh, the leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, claimed on Oct. 8, 2023 that the terror group was holding at least 30 of the Israeli hostages kidnapped to the enclave.
