Israeli airstrike kills Hamas commander

Israel, July 31: Hamas has pledged revenge after fresh Israeli attacks on Gaza left one of its members dead and 15 other people wounded.

A young girl and an elderly man are among the injured.

Hamas says Issa Al-Batran, one of its commanders, was killed by a missile that hit his caravan in central Gaza.

Israeli warplanes fired a total of at least four missiles into the coastal strip.

Israel says it carried out the airstrikes in response to a rocket fired from Gaza into the city of Ashkelon. No one was injured by that blast.

“These new Zionist crimes will not pass without answer,” the military wing of Hamas said in a statement on Saturday.

Also on Saturday, two Palestinians were wounded by Israeli fire while searching for scrap material near the Gaza border fence, said Muawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services told AFP.

—Agencies