The terrorist killed in an Israeli Air Force strike in the Gaza Strip on Thursday was a member of the cell that killed five Israeli soldiers in an attack on an IDF outpost during the Gaza conflict in 2014, Hamas-affiliated media outlets reported Thursday.
Muhammad Hajila was a member of Hamas' military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas outlets said.
Originally, Hamas presented Hajila as a civilian who had been killed by IDF fire, but pictures published of his body dressed in an Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades shirt, as well as messages disseminated in Gaza, exposed his identity as a terrorist.
Palestinian media reported that Hajila, a father of three, was killed as he was operating a machine gunnery post targeted by the IDF on Thursday. The reports also said that two of Hajila's brothers had been killed carrying out acts of "resistance," one in 2004 and the other in 2008.
"We are revealing the identity of one of the perpetrators of the action at Nahal Oz that broke the legs and the heads of the soldiers of the occupation [Israel] – the shahid [martyr] and hero of the Shujaiyya neighborhood," a Twitter feed associated with Hamas declared.
In the ambush at Nahal Oz during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, armed terrorists rushed an IDF outpost and killed five soldiers: Sgts. Erez Sagi, Daniel Kedmi, Barkey Ishai Shor, Dor Dery and Nadav Raimond.
After the IAF struck Gaza on Thursday, heavy machine gun fire was aimed from Gaza at Israeli communities near the border. One home was hit. The IDF retaliated, killing Hajila and wounding another terrorist.
