JERUSALEM: Israel’s military on Friday said a strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon earlier this week had killed “13 Hamas terrorists.”
Lebanese authorities said Tuesday’s strike on Ain Al-Helweh camp killed at least 13 people, without giving their identities.
“Thirteen Hamas terrorists were eliminated in a precise IDF (military) strike targeting the organization’s training compound in southern Lebanon,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
Those killed included “Jawad Sidawi, who was involved in training terrorists in order to carry out terror attacks from Lebanese territory” against Israel and its troops, the statement said.
The Israeli army did not immediately respond to an AFP request for the names of the 12 other people killed in the strike.
Israel’s military “is operating against Hamas’s establishment in Lebanon, and will continue to operate against Hamas terrorists wherever they operate,” it said.
In a statement released Thursday, accompanied by pictures of 13 young-looking men, Hamas described the strike as a “horrific massacre that caused the deaths of several innocent civilian martyrs.”
On Tuesday, the militant group denied it had military installations in Palestinian camps in Lebanon and called Israel’s claims “lies.”
The Israeli military released a video of a strike hitting a building, but Hamas said that “the targeted site was an open sports field frequented by the youth of the camp,” and that “those targeted were a group of young boys” on the field at the time.
The crowded Ain Al-Helweh camp, located on the outskirts of the coastal city of Sidon, is the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon.
Israel has kept up strikes on Lebanon despite a ceasefire agreed last November that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities with Hamas ally Hezbollah, including two months of full-blown war.