Israeli strike kills newly appointed Hamas Rafah Brigade commander Samir Abu Younis
Israel and Hamas officials say Samir Abu Younis, the newly appointed commander of Hamas’s Rafah Brigade, was killed on Saturday in an Israeli airstrike in Al-Mawasi in the southern Gaza Strip. Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades military wing reported the death, a local Hamas official confirmed it, and the Israel Defence Forces and Israel’s security agency, the ISA, said in a Telegram statement that they had “eliminated” him. The IDF said it had targeted Younis and that steps were taken beforehand to mitigate harm to civilians.
Eyewitnesses said four missiles struck a tent in the Al-Waha camp, which shelters hundreds of displaced people in Al-Mawasi, and that a fire broke out. A medical source at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said three injured people and one dead body had arrived there.
The IDF and ISA described Younis as a central senior Hamas figure who had sought to restore the strength of the brigade and the organisation, and said he directed fighters to carry out attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops. Al-Qassam said he had taken part in numerous high-profile operations, resisted Israeli incursions, and was one of the most important commanders involved in planning and overseeing the 7 October 2023 attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. It called his killing a “cowardly assassination.”
Younis, 53, had held the Rafah command since 15 September after the death of Nael Abu Obeid. He joined Hamas’s armed wing in 1991 and later held senior operational roles. Hamas said his funeral would be held on Sunday afternoon in Khan Younis. Gaza’s health ministry says more than 74,650 people have been killed in the territory since the war began. A ceasefire was reached last October; Israel has continued occasional strikes it says target remaining Hamas militants and argues it may do so under the ceasefire terms.
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