Work Accident' Kills Hamas Field Commander During Bomb-Making Training Session

A field commander for Hamas’ military wing was killed Saturday and nine others were injured during a training session on building bombs, Israeli and Palestinian media reported.

Hamas' military wing posted this photo of its commander killed in an accidental explosion (Photo: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades)

The military wing of Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, released a statement saying its operative was killed in an accidental “internal explosion” in Gaza.

On its English-language website, the militant group wrote that the man, identified as Ibrahim al-Ghoul, 30, “was martyred after a long bright path of jihad, hard work, struggle and sacrifice.”

Hamas’ military wing further noted that it “has its best men to be in the playground of death to defend their people from any attack by the enemy.”

The Times of Israel reported that the explosion occurred in a house in the southern town of Rafah near the Egyptian border.

A spokesman for the Gaza Strip Ministry of Health Ashraf al-Qidra told the independent Palestinian news agency Ma’an that most of those wounded had sustained serious injuries.

This terrorist “work accident” comes just one month after 22 Iraqi militants were killed at a lesson on making car bombs and explosive belts. The Associated Press reported of the incident that “a glitch set off one of the devices.”

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