Hamas Confirms Odeh Death; Israeli Strikes Kill 18 Palestinians in Gaza on Eid
Hamas confirmed on Wednesday that Israeli airstrikes killed its newly-appointed military wing leader Mohammed Odeh, less than two weeks after his predecessor was killed in a similar strike. Dozens of Palestinians carried Odeh’s body through the streets of Gaza City in a funeral procession on Wednesday. Israeli warplanes carried out multiple attacks across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing at least 18 Palestinians including children and women, and injuring more than two dozen others, as strikes targeted densely populated neighbourhoods and areas crowded with displaced families. Since the October 10 ceasefire, Israel has killed at least 906 Palestinians and injured more than 2,747 others.
Israel has acknowledged supporting groups opposed to Hamas during its war on Gaza; incursions by Israeli-backed armed gangs have escalated in recent weeks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has separately told confidants Israel has “no manoeuvre to influence the president right now” on the Iran deal — an acknowledgment that Israel has been largely left out of the US-Iran talks despite the war beginning with joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February. The October 7, 2023 attacks killed 1,200 Israelis; since then Gaza’s health ministry says Israel’s campaign has killed at least 72,800 Palestinians and injured more than 172,800 across the Gaza Strip. The Odeh succession from Ezz al-Din al-Haddad represents Hamas’s third military-wing chief change since the war began.