The Israeli army killed Khaled Abu Halal, a former ranking member of the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of Fatah (Abu Mazen's party), who had become an affiliate of Hamas. Haaretz reports that Abu Halal was the victim of an air attack in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City.

While raids by the Israeli military continued in the Strip during the night. Soldiers have taken control of an Islamic Jihad commander's stronghold.

This morning also came the announcement of the recovery of the body of Noa Marciano, the 19-year-old soldier taken hostage by Hamas from the Nahal Oz base on 7 October. According to the military spokesperson, the body was in a structure adjacent to the Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Hamas released a video of Marciano last Monday - taken 4 days after her kidnapping - which said who she was and whose daughter she was. At a certain point, the video stopped and his body appeared. Yesterday, the body of another female hostage kidnapped by Hamas was recovered, again near the Shifa hospital.

Last night Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Hamas for "fruitless" efforts to minimize civilian deaths in Gaza. In an interview with CBS, he said that Israel is doing everything it can to keep civilians out of harm's way as it fights Hamas in the Strip, including "throwing leaflets" warning them to flee, but that its attempts to minimize casualties "They were not successful."

Finally he reiterated that the objective of his military campaign is to destroy Hamas: «We will try to complete the job with minimal civilian losses. That's what we're trying to do: minimize civilian casualties. But unfortunately we didn't succeed."

(Unioneonline/ss)