Military statement says Rafa Salama was one of the masterminds of the October 7 attack in southern Israel
Israel said on Sunday that senior Hamas military commander Rafa Salama, “one of the masterminds” of the October 7 attack that sparked the Gaza war, has been killed in a strike.
A military statement said the Israeli air force “struck and eliminated the commander of Hamas’ Khan Yunis Brigade, Rafa Salama”, in an attack on Saturday in the southern Gaza Strip.
The attack also targeted Mohammed Deif, the Palestinian group’s military chief, the army said earlier.
A Hamas official said that Deif was still alive and overseeing operations.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also acknowledged that there was “no certainty” that Deif had been killed.
According to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, 92 people were killed and more than 300 injured in the attack on the Al Mawasi camp where tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians had taken refuge.
The military said its strike on Saturday aimed at Deif and Salama in “an open area” that was “not a tent complex, but an operational compound”.
Sunday’s military statement described Salama as one of Deif’s “closest associates” and “one of the masterminds of the October 7 massacre” in southern Israel.
It said Salama joined Hamas in the early 1990s, became a battalion commander “and played a significant role” in the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006. Shalit was released in 2011 in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
He became commander of Hamas’s Khan Yunis Brigade in 2016 and was responsible for rocket launches into Israel and “two offensive tunnels”, the army said.
The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel’s military retaliation has killed at least 38,584 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from Gaza’s health ministry.