The Israeli Army reported this Friday the death of Qais Bitawi, one of the main leaders of the Hamas militias present in the Jenin refugee camp, following a somewhat unusual airstrike carried out over this locality in the West Bank.
According to a statement released on its official website, the Israeli Armed Forces explained that the attack on the vehicle in which Bitawi was traveling also resulted in the death of two other people, also members of the militias of the Palestinian Islamist movement.
So far, Hamas has limited itself to certifying the death of "three heroic martyrs" in this Israeli bombing, which took place near a house located in the Harash al Saada area.
The General Directorate of Civil Affairs, an agency dependent on the Palestinian Authority, has confirmed the death of Bitawi, 22 years old, and has named the other two deceased in the drone attack against Jenin.
They are Basil Muhamad Ibrahim Turkman and Momen Muhammad Faris Jaradat, aged 26 and 22, respectively, the agency noted on its official social media accounts, after taking charge of the bodies.
The operation is relatively exceptional, given that Israel usually opts for ground incursions in the West Bank. Since the beginning of the Gaza war, the Israeli Army has executed around a hundred airstrikes in this territory, of which only five have been carried out with fighter jets.
Hamas, for its part, has denounced an "atrocious crime" and has warned that the West Bank, despite the increase in Israeli military operations and settler attacks in recent weeks, will continue to be a "cradle of revolutionaries."
"We call on the masses of our people in Jenin and throughout the West Bank to intensify all forms of resistance, disrupt the security calculations of the occupation, confront their crimes and the attacks of their settler gangs, and unite national efforts against the plans of assassination, annexation, and displacement," concludes Hamas.