After two weeks of intense battles between Hamas militants and Israeli troops in the Gaza City neighborhood of Shajaiye, residents and rescue workers combed through the wreckage on Friday, a landscape of flattened buildings strewed with dozens of bodies.
“The scale of destruction is immense.”More than nine months into the war in Gaza, Israeli troops are returning to areas they had previously conquered and encountering strong resistance from Hamas fighters.
The offensive in Shajaiye was part of a wider Israeli effort to clamp down on a renewed Hamas insurgency in Gaza City, the military said.
And Israel said on Friday that it had “eliminated” the deputy commander of Hamas’s Shajaiye Battalion, Ayman Showadeh.
He had been “a key operative” at the group’s operations headquarters and had been involved in directing the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack that set off the war in Gaza, Israel said.
Persons:
”, Karam Hassan, Israel, Hamas’s, Ayman Showadeh
Organizations:
Hamas
Locations:
Gaza City, Shajaiye, Gaza, Israel