Israel said an airstrike in southern Gaza killed a top Hamas commander while Jordan sentenced three men to death for a fatal Greek Orthodox church shooting last month.
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Israeli forces killed a top commander of Hamas in an airstrike on southern Gaza shortly after midnight Saturday, according to Israel. Hamas later confirmed the death of Samir Mahmoud Hassan Abu Younis and said a funeral would be held for him later Sunday. Israel’s military said Abu Younis had been directing plans to advance and carry out terror attacks and said it also targeted other Hamas militants in the strike, though it did not provide additional details.
In Jordan, the State Security Court sentenced three men to death for a shooting at a Greek Orthodox Church in a village north of the city of Karak. The court sentenced the men under charges of carrying out terrorist acts, according to state-run Al Mamlaka TV.
The attack took place on Oct. 23 at St. George’s Church in Hamoud, a village about 100 kilometres south of Amman, where attackers targeted mourners attending a funeral. Jordan said nine people were killed and dozens were wounded, and it described the defendants as followers of an extremist ideology who were not affiliated with an organized group. Jordanian authorities arrested the three men three days after the attack following a shootout with security forces, and all three were wounded; no group claimed responsibility.
In Yemen, the Iran-backed Houthis said they released about 600 detainees captured in the latest escalation of fighting, describing it as the largest unilateral release of detainees in the country’s 12-year civil war. A group allied with the Saudi-backed Yemeni government said its fighters pulled out from areas along the Bab el-Mandeb Strait amid continued attacks by the Houthis, and said it would focus on securing Aden and trying to break a siege of Taiz.
Separately, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claimed it struck a radar system at an American helicopter base in Bahrain, and Iran’s IRNA news agency reported the claim. The U.S. military’s Central Command did not immediately comment, while Bahrain’s military said its air defence systems intercepted and destroyed Iranian projectiles before they reached their targets, and Bahrain’s Interior Ministry issued nationwide alerts warning of a threat.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei also rejected a German demand that Tehran halt uranium enrichment, saying Iran has a right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Baghaei said Iran would not leave any blow unanswered in response to renewed U.S. attacks and criticized the International Atomic Energy Agency for what he described as nontechnical speculation about a potential new enrichment facility in Isfahan.
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