The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas says Palestinian guards have opened fire on Israeli captives held in the Gaza Strip, killing one and seriously wounding two others in reaction to an earlier massacre by the Israeli regime against a school in the coastal sliver.
Abu Obeida, spokesman for al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing, announced the development on Monday.
“In two separate incidents, two soldiers assigned to guard enemy captives opened fire on a Zionist captive, killing him instantly,” he said.
“Additionally, two female captives were seriously injured, and attempts are being made to save their lives,” the official added.
“A committee has been formed to investigate the details, and the findings will be announced later.”
The incident followed the regime’s massacring more than 120 people in an attack on the prayer hall of the al-Tabaeen School in Gaza City during a mass prayer at dawn.
Referring to the bloodletting, Abu Obeida said, “The Zionist government bears full responsibility for these massacres and the resulting reactions that affect the lives of Zionist captives.”
The carnage came during an ongoing genocidal war that the regime has been waging on Gaza since October 7 last year.
Nearly 40,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in the brutal military onslaught that followed a retaliatory operation staged by the territory’s resistance groups during which some 240 people were taken captive.
A week-long truce deal agreed last November saw Hamas releasing 105 captives in return for some 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
The regime believes over 100 of the captives are still held in Gaza and that around 50 of them are still alive.
Hamas says scores of captives have been killed in the intense bombing campaigns carried out by the regime against the territory.
The movement has repeatedly said it would release the remaining captives in exchange for complete cessation of the Israeli aggression and the regime’s full withdrawal. It has also conditioned their release on the return of the displaced people, an end to the siege that has been imposed by Tel Aviv on Gaza, and initiation of the coastal sliver’s reconstruction process.
The regime’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, however, vowed to keep up the war until, what he has called, “elimination” of Hamas, a prospect that has been ruled out as impossible by the group and even some Israeli officials and Tel Aviv’s own allies.