IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kohavi on Thursday said the military attacked a third country while operating in Gaza during Operation Breaking Dawn, Israeli media reported.
“Ten days ago, the IDF struck with great precision Tayseer Jabari, who is an arch-terrorist, and at the same time carried out a wave of arrests in the West Bank and... attacked a third country, and defended the rest of [Israel’s] borders,” Kohavi told a conference of Education Ministry department heads.
“If there is no operation, then there is defense,” he said. “This is a very complex task that we must not take for granted. You saw the thwarting of Jabari, an arch-murderer, in a 14-story building. And we carried out the task with 20 Givati soldiers, who have to be very precise and take a very high level of risk.”
Tayseer al-Jabari
Jabari, the top Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander killed in the Israeli bombing of an apartment in the Gaza Strip during Operation Breaking Dawn, was in charge of the terrorist group’s rocket arsenal and was its primary coordinator with Hamas.
He replaced Baha Abu Al-Ata, another Islamic Jihad commander, whom Israel killed in a similar airstrike in November 2019.
Jabari, 50, had been a member of Islamic Jihad for decades, climbing the ranks of the terrorist group that is backed by Iran and whose leaders reside in Syria.