(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - The Israeli air strike killed five Palestinians today, bringing the toll from Israeli new attack against Gaza to 14 dead and at least 100 wounded, medical officials said today.
The Israeli military had launched its operation yesterday with the killing of a top Hamas commander followed by at least 60 Israeli air strikes.
Ahmed Jaabari, the operational commander of Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, was killed along with his bodyguard, Mohammed al-Hams, in an initial Israeli strike on a car in Gaza City, the Islamist movement said.
Shortly afterwards, Israel pounded the Gaza Strip with more strikes, killing five more civilian people, two of them children, Hamas Health Minister Mufid Mukhalalati said in a televised press conference at Gaza City's Shifa hospital.
Yesterday medics reported another fatality in the wave of strikes on targets across the territory.
Hospitals and medical centers across Gaza were put on high alert after the initial strikes as Israel warned the hit on Jaabari was only "the beginning".
Hamas's Al-Aqsa television showed ambulances racing through the streets on Wednesday, transporting casualties to crowded emergency rooms, including at the Shifa hospital.
A man wearing blue pajamas was seen carrying his son and two men supported an elderly man as he struggled to move away from the site of one explosion.
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