Top Hamas operative who directed West Bank terror killed in recent Gaza strike

A senior Hamas member in the Gaza Strip who was involved in directing attacks in the West Bank, was killed in a recent airstrike, the IDF announces.

According to the military, Nael Sakhel was targeted on July 24, and a few days later, it received intelligence that he was killed.

Sakhel had been a member of Hamas’s so-called West Bank headquarters for more than a decade, the IDF says. The Gaza Strip-based unit is charged with directing attacks on Israel from or within the West Bank.

According to the IDF, Sakhel was involved in funding and providing weapons to terror cells in the West Bank.

Sakhel had first been detained by Israel in 2003 and sentenced to life over involvement in a suicide bombing in Israel. He was then released and exiled to Gaza in a 2011 deal, in which Israel exchanged 1,027 terror convicts for captive soldier Gilad Shalit.

Source » timesofisrael.com