TEL AVIV, December 7. /TASS/. Two senior Hamas intelligence operatives have been eliminated in the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israel Security Agency (ISA) said in a joint statement.

"A few days ago, <...> the IAF [Israeli Air Force] eliminated Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a senior terrorist operative from Hamas’ military intelligence unit," the statement reads.

"He was eliminated in an attack on Hamas’s central intelligence command center along with Ahmed Aiush, a terrorist operative from Hamas’ Carrara Battalion observation unit," the document added.

According to the statement, Rantisi was responsible for field intelligence in the Gaza Strip and participated in the planning of the October 7 attack on Israel. The command center "was responsible for compiling field intelligence from across the Gaza Strip and served as a significant strategic hub for Hamas to direct combat activities."

Tensions in the Middle East flared up again on October 7 after militants from the radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip, killing residents of border communities and taking over 200 people, including women, children and the elderly, hostage. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel announced a total blockade of Gaza and launched a military operation in the enclave, carrying out strikes on targets in the Strip, as well as on border areas in Lebanon and Syria in response to shelling attacks. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.