- Eye on IOFHuman RightsPalestine
- January 16, 2008
- 3 minutes read
IOF special units assassinate Quds commander in WB
Israeli special forces on Wednesday assassinated Walid Obaidi, 40, the commander of the Quds Brigades the armed wing of Islamic Jihad Movement in the West Bank, and kidnapped two of his associates after wounding them in Qabatia town, Jenin district.
Local sources said that the IOF soldiers stormed the village in 60 army vehicles under air cover of Apache choppers and besieged a building. They added that the soldiers fired at the house and asked Obaidi to surrender but he refused and was killed in the exchange of fire while his two comrades were injured and arrested.
Obaidi, a father of three sons, has been wanted by the IOF for more than seven years and had survived a number of assassination attempts the latest of which was two years ago when Apache choppers fired two missiles at a house in which he was entrenched along with his comrade Hussam Jaradat but both survived and two others were killed.
The IOF accuses Obaidi of being the mastermind of a number of raids against Israeli targets.
In nearby Nablus, IOF soldiers advanced anew into the city at dawn Wednesday and kidnapped 17 citizens from the city and its refugee camps.
Locals said that most of the arrested were known Hamas supporters, and added that among the kidnapped was a university lecturer and five brothers.
In the Gaza Strip, two Palestinian resistance fighters on Wednesday survived an IOF aerial bombing in Jabalia. Both escaped with moderate wounds but their identity and affiliation were not known yet.
The Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas Movement, in reprisal to Tuesday”s massacre in Gaza that left 19 killed and 50 wounded, fired 150 home made mortars, missiles and projectiles at Israeli targets near to Gaza topped by Sderot over the past 24 hours.
The missile bombing on Wednesday badly damaged a central bus station in Sderot while Tuesday night bombing caused an electricity blackout in addition to wounding 15 settlers.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Palestinians hit the streets of Gaza Strip on Tuesday evening at the invitation of the Hamas Movement to protest the IOF massacre.
The angry demonstrators demanded revenge and called on PA chief Mahmoud Abbas to stop what they called “open treachery” and all “suspicious meetings” with Zionist leaders.