On Saturday, November 11, news from Israeli authorities revealed that Hamas commander Ahmed Siam had been killed. Siam was believed to have been holding 1,000 Gazan as hostages in a hospital.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported that their fighter planes targeted and killed Siam and “a number of Hamas terrorists under his command” while they were hiding in a school. This incident is yet another example of how the terrorist organization Hamas cynically exploits civilians for their own gain.
The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service, provided intelligence about Siam’s whereabouts to IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. Hagari tweeted that this incident serves as an example of how Hamas exploits “the residents of the Gaza Strip and civilian facilities as a human shield for the organization’s terrorist needs.”
Furthermore, NBC news reported that several hospitals including Rantisi Hospital and al-Shifa Hospital came under attack, with twelve severely ill children being evacuated from Rantisi Hospital alone.
IDF aircraft just struck Ahmed Siam, responsible for holding approximately 1,000 Gazan residents and patients hostage at the Rantisi Hospital, and preventing their evacuation southward.
Siam was a commander in Hamas' Naser Radwan Company, and is another example of Hamas using… pic.twitter.com/RGJAISFjxL
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 11, 2023
It is important to note that IDF worked hard to secure an evacuation route for those living in Rantisi Hospital and issued warnings prior to any attacks made by their fighter jets. Moreover, they denied laying sieges on al-Shifa Hospital but claimed that Hamas was using civilian infrastructure such as hospitals and mosques as weapons depots and were travelling through ambulances covertly.
In addition to killing Ahmed Siam on Saturday, an Israeli fighter jet fatally struck Ibrahim Abu-Maghsib—Head of Hamas’ Anti-Tank Missile Unit—on Thursday according to IDF reports.
