Senior Hamas military official, Mohammad Shahin, was assassinated on Monday, February 17, in an Israeli drone strike that targeted a car in Sidon city in southern Lebanon.
Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, mourned Shahin (also known as Abu al-Bara’a) in a statement on Monday, describing him as a hero, “who had a pioneering role and who left his own imprint through the jihad and resistance path, and in fighting the zionist entity since the eruption of the second Intifada until Al-Aqsa Flood battle.”
In another statement Hamas commented on Shahin’s assassination by asserting that “the Zionist treacherous hand which stretched out to the fields in diaspora, the way it stretched out to the field of the homeland, will never succeed in breaking the will of the resistance.”
Israel’s ceasefire violations
The aerial attack launched by Israel inside Lebanon is added to a list that includes hundreds of other Israeli violations of the 60-day ceasefire deal with Hezbollah, which started in late November, and was extended under US pressure till February 18.
The presence of Israeli troops on the Lebanese territory beyond the deadline is yet another flagrant violation. The United Nations said that although the IOF withdrew from some towns and villages in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, February 18, it held onto strategic positions along the border as the deadline elapsed.
The continuous presence of the IOF in Lebanon was slammed by Israeli newspaper Maariv, which described the step as “a strategic Israeli mistake”, which “many fathers and mothers will cry over”, referring to the families of the IOF soldiers.
