Jerusalem., The Israeli army announced this Thursday that its bombing killed three senior Hamas commanders three months ago in the Gaza Strip, where the forces of the Jewish State have been fighting the Palestinian Islamist movement for almost a year.
The military said the attack killed Rawhi Mushtaha, head of the Hamas government for Gaza, Sameh al Siraj, head of security in Hamas’s political office, and Sami Udeh, head of the Palestinian Islamist movement’s internal security agency.
“Mushtaha was one of the highest-ranking Hamas commanders, and had direct influence on decisions regarding the deployment of forces” in the movement, the Israeli military said in a statement.
Yazidi woman freed in US-led operation
A 21-year-old woman kidnapped by Islamic State militants in Iraq more than a decade ago was freed from Gaza this week in a US-led operation, US and Iraqi officials said.
Israel, Jordan and Iraq also participated in the operation, according to officials.
The woman is a member of the ancient Yazidi religious minority, present mainly in Iraq and Syria, where more than 5,000 members were killed and thousands more were kidnapped in a 2014 campaign that the UN has described as genocide.
She was freed after more than four months of efforts that included several attempts that failed due to the difficult security situation resulting from Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, Silwan Sinjaree, chief of staff to Iraq’s foreign minister, told Reuters.
The woman was identified as Fawzia Sido. Reuters was unable to contact her directly for comment.
Iraqi officials had been in contact with the woman for months and passed her information to American officials, who arranged her departure from Gaza with Israel’s help, according to a source familiar with the matter.
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