Israel’s military announced on Monday that it has conducted over 200 airstrikes across the Gaza Strip over the past three days, targeting what it described as militant infrastructure. Among those killed was Ahmad Mansour, a member of the Islamic Jihad movement, who the military claimed participated in the surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and later directed rocket fire during the ongoing conflict.
The strikes targeted militant cells, rocket launch and sniper positions, weapons depots, and command centers, according to the Israeli military. In the Shabura and Tel al-Sultan neighborhoods of Rafah, Israeli troops reportedly dismantled what they termed “terrorist infrastructure” and uncovered caches of grenades, ammunition, and other military equipment.
Along the Morag Corridor, recently constructed to divide Rafah from Khan Younis and the rest of Gaza, troops located weapons, destroyed Hamas infrastructure, and engaged militants, the military stated. In northern Gaza, soldiers launched an airstrike on a building containing underground facilities and reported dismantling sniper posts they said were threatening ground forces.
The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that at least eight people were killed in Israeli strikes on Monday, with dozens more wounded. On the same day, Gaza’s civil defense agency accused the Israeli military of carrying out “summary executions” in the killing of 15 rescue workers in late March, rejecting the findings of an internal probe by the army.
“The video filmed by one of the paramedics proves that the Israeli occupation’s narrative is false and demonstrates that it carried out summary executions,” said Mohammed Al-Mughair, a civil defense official, speaking to AFP. He accused Israel of seeking to “circumvent” its obligations under international law.
The incident in question involved medics and rescue workers who were killed while responding to distress calls near Gaza’s southern city of Rafah on March 23, early in Israel’s renewed offensive in the territory. Among those killed were eight staff members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, six from the Gaza civil defense agency, and one employee of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, as reported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and Palestinian rescuers.
The incident drew international condemnation, including concerns about possible violations of international law from UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk. An Israeli military investigation released on Sunday stated it “found no evidence to support claims of execution” or “indiscriminate fire” by its troops but acknowledged operational failures and dismissed a field commander. The military revised its earlier claim, stating that six of those killed were militants instead of nine.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society rejected the report as “full of lies.” “It is invalid and unacceptable, as it justifies the killing and shifts responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different,” Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the Red Crescent, told AFP.
