2 Hamas Commanders Who Led Attack Killed As Israel-Palestine Conflict Enters Day 8

Israel on Saturday claimed that it killed two Hamas commanders who were behind the cross-border deadly rampage into Israel a week ago.

The military said it killed Merad Abu Merad, who was the head of the Hamas aerial system, and Ali Qadi, a company commander of a commando force.

Earlier, the Israel Defense Forces said it had killed a senior member of the Hamas terror group in an overnight airstrike in the Gaza Strip.

The IDF reported that the strike targeted a headquarters overseeing the aerial activities of the terror group, resulting in the demise of Murad Abu Murad, the head of Hamas's aerial operations, according to The Times Of Israel.

Top Developments in the War

• Iran's foreign minister on Saturday has urged Israel to stop its attacks on Gaza, warning that the war might expand to other parts of the Middle East if Hezbollah joins the battle, and that would make Israel suffer "a huge earthquake." "I know about the scenarios that Hezbollah has put in place," Amirabdollahian said. "Any step the resistance (Hezbollah) will take will cause a huge earthquake in the Zionist entity," he added.
• Qatar on Saturday said that it categorically rejects any attempt to forcibly displace the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip. A statement from the Qatari foreign ministry said that the state of Qatar "call on lifting the siege of Gaza Strip, and provide full protection for the Palestinian civilians according to the international and humanitarian laws".
• According to the United Nations, over 423,000 people have fled their residences in Gaza even before Israel's directive to evacuate the northern Gaza Strip.
• A video journalist from Reuters was killed and six others were injured in southern Lebanon on Friday when missiles fired from the direction of Israel struck them.

• A group of journalists, which included representatives from Al Jazeera and Agence France-Presse, were operating in the vicinity of Alma al-Shaab, near the Israel border. This area has seen exchanges of fire in border clashes between the Israeli military and Lebanese militia Hezbollah. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, alongside a Hezbollah lawmaker, attributed the incident to Israel.
• Palestinians scrambled to flee northern Gaza after Israel's military urged about 1 million people to leave for the territory's south ahead of an expected ground invasion following the surprise attack a week ago by the ruling Hamas militant group - despite warnings from the UN that evacuating nearly half of Gaza's population would be calamitous.
• Families in cars, trucks and donkey carts packed with their possessions crowded a main road southward from Gaza City as Israeli airstrikes hammered the territory on Friday. Hamas' media office said warplanes struck cars fleeing south, killing more than 70 people.
• Israel's ultimatum that over one million people in northern Gaza should relocate within 24 hours is "extremely dangerous" and "simply not possible", UN chief Antonio Guterres has said, asserting that "even wars have rules."
• Israel's military said early on Saturday it had struck a Hezbollah target in southern Lebanon in response to the "infiltration of unidentified aerial objects into Israel" and fire on an Israeli drone.