Israel strikes 2 high-rise towers in Gaza used for housing Hamas assets

New Delhi: The Israel Defense Forces said on Saturday that it carried out airstrikes at two high-rise towers in the Gaza Strip that were used to house Hamas assets, a media report said.

“The Hamas terrorist organisation deliberately places its military assets in the heart of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip,” the IDF said, Times of Israel reported.

“Prior to the strike, the IDF provided advance warning to the occupants of the building and asked them to evacuate,” the military added.

The Hamas terror group has threatened to launch rockets at Tel Aviv in response to the IDF strikes on the towers, Times of Israel reported.

A senior Hamas leader said that the group has captured enough Israeli soldiers during an unprecedented attack against Israel to make Israeli authorities free all Palestinian prisoners from its jails, Al Jazeera reported.

“We managed to kill and capture many Israeli soldiers. The fighting is still on,” Saleh al-Arouri, deputy chief of Hamas’ political bureau, told Al Jazeera on Saturday.

“Our detainees in [Israeli] prisons, their freedom is looming large. What we have in our hands will release all our prisoners. The longer fighting continues, the higher the number of prisoners will become,” added al-Arouri, who said senior officers were among those captured, but did not provide any figures.

“This is not a [hit-and-run] operation; we started an all-out battle. We expect fighting to continue and the fighting front to expand. We have one prime target: our freedom and the freedom of our holy sites,” he told Al Jazeera.
IANS