Israeli troops kill key terrorist leader in West Bank

Muhhamad Jabber died in a gunfight, the Israel Defense Forces said on Thursday. He was the head of a terrorist network in the Nur Shams area of the West Bank, according to the IDF’s statement. Jabber, who was also known as Abu Shujaa, had carried out several terrorist attacks against Israelis including a shooting that killed an Israeli civilian earlier this year, the IDF added. Jabber died alongside four other militants who the IDF said were hiding out in a mosque in Tulkarm, a few miles east of Nur Shams.

Have militants in Gaza commented on the gunfight? In a statement on the social media app Telegram, the Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas acknowledged Jabber’s death. The group insisted that Israeli military operations in the West Bank would not crush Palestinians’ resistance to Israel’s occupation, according to a translation of the statement.

Didn’t the Israeli military kill several militants in the West Bank earlier this week? Israeli forces killed nine militants in two separate operations in the Jenin and Fa’ra areas of the West Bank on Wednesday. Israeli forces also arrested other militants and confiscated weapons and explosives in both those areas, the IDF said. In a statement on the social media app Telegram, Hamas acknowledged fighting against Israel in both Jenin and Fa’ra and characterized the deceased individuals as martyrs.

In a separate incident on Wednesday, the Israeli Air Force killed Faris Qasim, a leader in the operations division of the Palestinian terrorist group Islamic Jihad, the IDF said. Other Islamic Jihad militants also died in the strike near Lebanon’s border with Syria, the Israeli military said. Qasim had helped the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah recruit Palestinian fighters and had assisted in planning and conducting terrorist attacks against Israel from Lebanon, the IDF said.

Dig deeper: Listen to Paul Butler’s report on The World and Everything in It podcast about how Iran is running an eight-front pressure campaign against Israel.