Hamas has confirmed the killing of senior commander Raed Saad in an Israeli attack in Gaza in the highest-profile assassination of a senior figure in the Palestinian group since the October ceasefire.
The Israeli military had said it killed Saad in an attack on Saturday near Gaza City. At least 25 people were wounded.
Confirming Saad’s killing in a video statement on Sunday, Hamas’s Gaza chief, Khalil al-Hayya, accused Israel of violating the ceasefire.
“In the wake of Israel’s continued violations, including the latest assassination of a Hamas commander just yesterday, we call on the mediators and especially the US administration and US President Donald Trump as the main guarantor of the agreement, to force the occupation [Israel] to respect the ceasefire deal and to implement it,” he said.
Since the ceasefire started on October 10, Israel has continued to attack Gaza daily – carrying out nearly 800 attacks and killing at least 386 people – in breach of the agreement, according to authorities in Gaza.
Moreover, Israel has refused to allow the free flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza in violation of the truce’s terms as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are suffering after Storm Byron, which flooded 27,000 tent shelters.
The United Nations General Assembly last week overwhelmingly backed a resolution demanding that Israel open unrestricted humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip, stop attacking UN facilities and comply with international law in line with its obligations as an occupying power.
“Our priority is to continue with the steps to end the war and especially to complete phase one [of the ceasefire], which includes allowing aid and needed equipment to enter to rehabilitate hospitals and medical centres and the infrastructure,” al-Hayya said, adding that this must include opening the Rafah crossing with Egypt “in two directions” and advancing to phase two to secure “full withdrawal of the occupation”.
The October truce calls for the disarmament of Hamas and deployment of an international stabilisation force proposed by Trump. But al-Hayya, who himself survived an Israeli assassination attempt in Doha in September, said the role of any international peace force should be strictly limited.
“The mission of the international peace force must be limited to maintaining or keeping the ceasefire and to separate the two sides on the boundaries of the Gaza Strip,” he said, adding that Hamas and other Palestinian factions remain committed to the agreement but reject any form of guardianship imposed on Gaza or its people.
