Driving towards him in the distance was a grey, Kia saloon – a new model it appeared. As he bent his head down to continue his task, he was thrown backwards, an ear-splitting blast detonating in the relative confines of the quiet, mostly residential street.
Commander of the Hamas military wing Ahmad Jabari, who was killed in yesterday's attack
When the thick black smoke cleared, Mr Hatour could pick out the severed front of the Kia blazing furiously only yards away. But only the front. The rest of it was gone, strewn in charred pieces across the road, amid a carpet of glass, blood and blackened metal.
Looking around, he saw pieces of undercarriage and exhaust lying next to him. Blood was splattered on the white walls of one building opposite. Fragments of what appeared to be human flesh reached as far as a fourth floor window, above the height of trees in full leaf.
Mr Hatour could see nothing of the two men who had been sitting inside the car. “I had no idea the man inside was Ahmed Jaabari,” he said, pointing to the two deep, narrow holes driven into the asphalt which marked the impact of Israeli missiles that killed the Hamas man.
Nearby Rena Ahmad, a 20-year-old student, told The Daily Telegraph how she rushed to her window after hearing the explosion. She watched as panicked bystanders, mostly teenage boys, dragged two charred bodies in pieces from the blazing wreck. “It was the first time I have seen a dead body and there were only black pieces of them left. My brother and his friends from the neighbourhood were scooping up pieces of flesh from the road. I saw a head, separated from its body, just lying on the concrete,” she said.
“The little kids in my building were crying. It was terrifying for them.”
Within minutes of the blast, the street was swarming with Hamas police, toting guns and fighting off the crowds who had gathered.
As missiles started to fall across the Gaza Strip, the launch of Operation Pillar of Defence was confirmed by the Israel Defence Forces. Jaabari’s death was a targeted assassination, payback for “decades long terrorist activity”.
As many as 20 air strikes were reported; in Zaitoun in the East, Rafah by the Egyptian border and Tal Alhawa in the centre. Palestinian media claimed that up to nine people, including two children, had been killed. One child was reported to be the 11-month-old son of a BBC employee.
As night fell, the skies across the northern border were illuminated by blazes and the regular thud of artillery fired from Israeli naval boats hit unseen targets along the coast.
In Gaza City the muezzins’ call rang out from mosques across the darkening sky: “The martyr Ahmed Jaabari is dead. The one who was killed in fighting is not dead but lives on in paradise. God is great.”
The Telegraph
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