Israel Kills High-Level Hamas Commander During Airstrike: IDF

Rockets are launched by Palestinian militants into in Gaza, Israel, on May 10, 2021. Mohammed Salem/Reuters

The Israeli Defense Forces confirmed it killed a high-level Hamas commander during an airstrike against the designated terrorist group.

“We just killed the commander of the Hamas anti-tank missile unit, Iyad Fathi Faik Sharir. He was in charge of carrying out anti-tank missile attacks on Israel. Our aircraft are currently striking additional terror targets in Gaza,” the Israel Defense Force (IDF) wrote on Twitter Tuesday as it launched attacks in Gaza.

Israel said that it would continue to launch attacks against Hamas after the group fired hundreds of rockets into Jerusalem, the capital, and other parts of the country.

Some 130 Palestinian targets were struck by the IDF on Monday and Tuesday, according to another statement.

“Overnight, in response to continuous rocket fire from the Gaza Strip at Israeli territory, the IDF struck over 130 terror targets belonging to terror organizations in the Gaza Strip,” the IDF said. “In the first and second stages of the strikes, IDF fighter jets, attack helicopters and aircraft struck weapons manufacturing sites belonging to the Hamas terror organization.”

Reports, including one from the Times of Israel, said that some 200 mortars and rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel on Monday and Tuesday. A number of those projectiles were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

So far, reports have indicated that 30 Palestinians and three Israelis have died.

Flames and smoke rise during air strikes amid a flare-up of violence, in the southern Gaza Strip, on May 11, 2021. Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/TPX Images of the Day/Reuters

A 13-story residential Gaza block collapsed amid the airstrikes. Late into the night, Gazans reported their homes shaking and the sky lighting up with near-constant Israeli strikes.

Israelis ran for shelters in communities more than 45 miles up the coast amid sounds of explosions as Israeli interceptor missiles streaked into the sky. Israel said hundreds of rockets had been fired by Palestinian terrorist groups.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that terror groups would pay a “very heavy” price for the rockets, which reached the outskirts of Jerusalem on Monday during a holiday in Israel commemorating its capture of East Jerusalem in a 1967 war.

“We are at the height of a weighty campaign,” Netanyahu said in televised remarks alongside his defense minister and military chief.

Reuters contributed to this report.