JERUSALEM, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Saturday that Aiman Zaarab, a senior commander of the Islamic Jihad Rafah Brigade, was killed in an airstrike on the southernmost Gazan city of Rafah.

 

Zaarab directed the Islamic Jihad's elite forces during the Oct. 7 onslaught on Kibbutz Sufa and the Sufa military post bordering the Gaza Strip, said the IDF in a statement.

 

Zaarab had "commanded and directed" several attacks, and over the past few days, he led the Islamic Jihads' preparations for a combat in the southern Gaza Strip against the Israeli military, according to the statement.