Israel Kills Islamic Jihad Leader, Other Militants, in Gaza Airstrikes

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israeli aircraft launched an assault on the radical Islamic Jihad organization in Gaza late Monday and early Tuesday, killing the group's overall commander and nine other militants in three strikes. A fourth attack on a security post in southern Gaza killed a Hamas militant, that group said.

Four of the Islamic Jihad militants were targeted as they emerged from morning prayers Tuesday at a northern Gaza mosque. Six others died when Israeli aircraft blasted two cars in Gaza City after nightfall Monday. "There is no doubt that this is a big loss," Khader Habib, an Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza, said.

The deadly strikes against Islamic Jihad are part of a stepped-up Israeli offensive against Gaza militants who fire near-daily rocket barrages at southern Israeli border communities. Islamic Jihad, a small radical group with ties to Iran, has taken responsibility for most of the barrages, including one that lightly wounded a two-year-old boy in an Israeli village this week.

Gaza's militant Hamas rulers, who don't recognize Israel's right to exist, aren't heavily involved in the cross-border attacks, but allow other radical factions, including its Islamic Jihad allies, to operate with impunity.

The airstrikes in Gaza came after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gained strong support for his moderate government at an international donors' conference in Paris. Donors pledged $7.4 billion over the next three years, far more than he expected. Mr. Abbas is locked in a power struggle with Hamas, which overran Gaza in June after routing his fighters.

In a sign of mourning for the dead Islamic Jihad fighters, all of Gaza City's mosques played verses from the Muslim holy book, the Quran, over loudspeakers Tuesday. Thousands of Gazans took to the streets in funeral processions for the dead militants, whose bodies and coffins were draped with black Islamic Jihad flags. Islamic Jihad fighters in fatigues and black baseball hats fired long bursts of bullets into the air, and loudspeakers mounted on cars at the head of the processions blared, "revenge is coming soon."

In an email sent to reporters, Islamic Jihad said it would retaliate for its losses with suicide attacks inside Israel, threatening "a wave of martyrdom operations."

Palestinian militants fired rockets and mortar shells at Israel on Tuesday morning. Two shells hit an Israeli community, causing damage to a chicken coop but no casualties, the military said. The Israeli military said the three air attacks targeted militants involved in rocket fire at Israel. "I'm very pleased with our achievements last night," Matan Vilnai, Israel's deputy defense minister, told Army Radio on Tuesday morning.

Separately, Islamic Jihad in Gaza announced that its commander in the northern West Bank had been killed by an undercover Israeli unit in the village of Qabatiyeh, where residents and security personnel found an empty car riddled with bullet holes and with red stains on its seats. No body was found.

The Israeli military said troops exchanged fire with militants in the village overnight. But the military, which usually takes responsibility for operations in which militants are killed or arrested, said the operation wasn't an assassination and that it had no knowledge of any Palestinian fatalities.

The target of the first Israeli airstrike in Gaza City late Monday was Majed Harazin, a senior Islamic Jihad militant in charge of rocket squads that have been firing at Israel, the military said. Islamic Jihad spokesman Khaled el-Batch confirmed that Mr. Harazin was killed. The group said he was its top commander for the West Bank and Gaza, and he rarely traveled in vehicles for fear of an Israeli airstrike. Another militant was killed and a third critically wounded in the airstrike, hospital officials said.

Islamic Jihad supporters gathered around the morgue and pledged revenge. "The blood of our comrades will be the fuel for the rockets that will bring death and destruction to the Zionists," another Islamic Jihad spokesman, Abu Hamza, said.

In the second airstrike, shortly before midnight, the military said it targeted a cell that was about to fire rockets at Israel. Undercover agents took part in the attack, the military said, and the leader of the cell and two other militants were killed. The remains of a fourth militant killed in the same strike were discovered Tuesday morning, according to Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Gaza Health Ministry.

Both Israel and Islamic Jihad identified him as Karim al-Dahdouh, a master rocket maker. The Israeli missiles obliterated a car on a narrow road, and rescue teams searched for body parts in a nearby grove. Hamas radio said the car was filled with explosives and warned people to stay away, but people crowded around the burning vehicle. Witnesses said the initial blast was followed by smaller explosions after the car was hit while slowing down near a mosque.

The third strike, early Tuesday, killed three more of the group's men and critically wounded a fourth, who later died of his wounds. Four civilians were also wounded, medical officials said.

The fourth attack, on a Hamas security post in the southern town of Rafah, killed one member of Hamas's security force, Hamas said. The military confirmed that it had carried out the strike.