According to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian enclave, Israeli airstrikes against the terrorist organization Islamic Jihad in Gaza on Tuesday resulted in the deaths of twelve persons.
The government did not reveal the identity of the victims, only that there were women and children among the dead. After the strikes, an AFP reporter in Gaza saw an ambulance bringing injured people and a building's roof on fire.
The Israeli army, which categorizes Islamic Jihad as a terrorist organization, claimed to have assaulted "weapon manufacturing sites" owned by the group and killed three of its leaders.
Jihad Ghannam, the Al-Quds Brigades military council's secretary, and Khalil Al-Bahtini, another council member and the commander of the military wing in northern Gaza, were two of the three prominent individuals whose deaths were confirmed by the militant group in a statement.
The third, Tareq Ezzedine, was described by Islamic Jihad as "one of the heads of military action" who operated out of Gaza in the occupied West Bank.
In the southern Gaza Strip, close to Rafah, an AFP photographer found the body of a man named Ghannam.
"We mourn the leaders and their wives and a number of their children who were killed in a cowardly Zionist crime," Islamic Jihad said in a statement, adding that "the blood of martyrs will increase (the) resolve" of the cause.
A little after 2 a.m., the airstrikes began, according to AFP journalists. (2300 GMT), with a new explosion heard in the east, were still going strong over two hours later.
The operation was conducted less than a week after Islamic Jihad, with the aid of Egypt, brokered a truce around Gaza in response to fresh hostilities.
Activists from Gaza and Israel exchanged cross-border fire after Khader Adnan, who had been jailed by Israel after going on a hunger strike for 87 days because of his affiliation with Islamic Jihad, died while being held there.
According to the terrorist group, Israel "scorned all the initiatives of mediators" on Tuesday and vowed to "avenge the leaders" killed in the most recent airstrikes.
The Israeli army stated in separate statements that it will "continue to operate for the security of the civilians in the state of Israel" and listed each member of the Islamic Jihad who had been killed.
The military identified Ghannan as "one of the most senior members of the organization," who "was entrusted with coordinating weapons and money transfers between the Hamas terrorist organization" and his movement.
Bahtini was allegedly "at fault" for Israel's most recent missile attacks, according to Israel.
Ezzedine was recently "planning and direction (sic) multiple attacks against Israeli" people in the West Bank, where he was reared and where Israel has been occupying since the 1967 Six-Day War.
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