Four al-Qassam Leaders Martyred, Including Northern Brigade Commander

By Al Mayadeen English

Al-Qassam Brigades mourns a number of its leaders in the northern Gaza Strip who were martyred during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, including a member of its military council and the commander of the Northern Brigade, Ahmad al-Ghandour.

In a statement, Al-Qassam Bridages, the military wing of Hamas, announced the martyrdom of the commander of its northern brigade, Ahmed al-Ghandour, and three other top leaders, during an Israeli attack against the resistance.

In a statement, the Al-Qassam Brigades said Ghandour was a member of its military council and named three other leaders who had been martyred, including Ayman Siyyam, who Israeli media said was head of the Hamas rocket-firing units.

According to the report, Ghandour was a key Hamas leader who led the group's northern Gaza unit and served on its military council.

"We pledge to Allah we will continue their path and that their blood will be a light for the mujahedeen and a fire for the occupiers," the statement said.

Backstory on Ahmad Ghandour 

Ghandour was imprisoned twice in "Israel" and reportedly lost two sons in Israeli airstrikes during the war.

During the 2014 battle, the IOF destroyed his house and a year later, an Israeli non-governmental organization accused him in a complaint for suspected war crimes committed during the conflict.

The State Department said at the time he was a member of Hamas's political bureau, as well as having previously been on the resistance group's Shura council, which groups its leaders from Gaza, the West Bank, and overseas.

Al-Qassam destroy Israeli targets IOF during aggression 

Earlier this week, Al-Qassam Brigades published footage of its resistance fighters directly confronting and targeting Israeli occupation force vehicles and soldiers during their aggression on Gaza.

The video shows one of the fighters planting an IED on the back door of a Merkava tank and a group engaging a vehicle's crews at point blank with AKMs. 

Earlier that day, Al-Qassam published scenes of launching missiles toward the occupied Palestinian territories and hammering enemy positions on the contact lines with mortar shells.

In turn, the Al-Quds Brigades announced that they, in conjunction with the Al-Qassam Brigades, targeted an Israeli Merkava IV vehicle with two missiles RPG-85 and al-Yassin 105.

It also announced the targeting of 11 various Israeli military vehicles with Tandem RPGs and IEDs, in the incursion axes in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, Tal Al-Hawa, Al-Shati, Sheikh Radwan, and the Juhr Al-Dik area.

Moreover, Al-Qassam Brigades Resistance fighters successfully targeted  60 Israeli military vehicles of various types in the past 72 hours and confronted the invading forces in several axes across Gaza, the group's spokesperson Abu Obeida said.

In an audio recording, Abu Obeida revealed that these military vehicles were targeted in the axes of southern al-Zaytoun neighborhood, the Sheikh Radwan and al-Tawam neighborhoods west of Jabalia camp, as well as in Beit Lahia. Three of the vehicles were armored personnel carriers, he added.

Most of these vehicles, he explained, were hit by Al-Yassin 105 shells, in addition to homegrown anti-tank IEDs, shrapnel bombs, and Tandem 85 shells.