Senior Hamas leader Ismail Abu Shanab had been planning attacks against Israel despite the group’s stated adherence to a truce, a senior Israeli security source said after his killing on Thursday.
The man often described as the number three in the hardline Palestinian group was ”directing terror attacks emanating from Gaza”, the source said.
”The killing of Abu Shanab has saved many, many Israeli civilians and casualties.”
The source said that Hamas had begun sanctioning attacks against Israeli targets some days ago in a breach of a three-month truce announced on June 29.
”Two weeks ago Hamas made a strategic decision to allow terror attacks while saying they still maintained the ceasefire,” the source said.
”In the last 10 days we have seen the same number of alerts [as before the truce].
”They used the period, and the fact that the IDF [Israeli defense forces] did not operate offensively in Palestinian areas as well as the fact that Palestinian security forces did not operate against the terror organisations, to rebuild their infrastructure to prepare themsevles for the ‘day after’.”
Hamas said it was calling off the truce after the air strike on Abu Shanab’s car in central Gaza, which also killed two other people.
Islamic Jihad, another hardline group signed up to the truce, said it would decide whether to continue it after a meeting later on Thursday.
The Israeli military also said on Thursday that three members of Islamic Jihad had been arrested in the northern Israeli town of Haifa on Tuesday night on suspicion that they were planning a suicide bombing. Ten kilograms of explosives were later found.
They were arrested on the same evening a massive suicide bomb in Jerusalem killed 20 people. — Sapa-AFP