Israel claims killing Hamas top commander

The Israel Defense Forces says it has killed the commander of Hamas’s Central Jabaliya Battalion, Ibrahim Biari, in an airstrike in the Gaza Strip a short while ago.

The military said the strike killed Biari and several other terrorists and caused underground terror tunnels to collapse, bringing down several nearby buildings, per The Times of Israel.

Palestinian reports said at least 50 people were killed in the strike and subsequent collapse.

According to the IDF, Biari was one of the Hamas commanders responsible for directing members of the terror group’s elite Nukhba forces to invade Israel on October 7.

The IDF says the airstrike in Jabaliya was part of “a wide-scale strike” on Hamas operatives and infrastructure belonging to the terror group’s Central Jabaliya Battalion.

According to the IDF, the Central Jabaliya Battalion took control of several civilian buildings in the area.

“The strike damaged Hamas’s command and control in the area, as well as its ability to direct military activity against IDF soldiers operating throughout the Gaza Strip,” the army says in a statement.

It says “numerous terrorists" were killed with Biari, and “underground terror infrastructure embedded beneath the buildings, used by the terrorists, also collapsed after the strike.”

The IDF says it also “reiterates its call to the residents of the area to move south for their safety.”