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The Israel Air Force (IAF) on Sunday morning struck and killed an Islamic Jihad militant in the northern Gaza Strip who was planning to fire rockets at Israel in the near future, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.
A statement said Ahmad Sa'ad was a key Islamic Jihad operative who specialized in rocket attacks on southern Israeli communities in recent years, and was personally responsible for a volley of five projectiles fired at the coastal city of Ashkelon last Thursday, all of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome rocket defense system.
Palestinian media quoted sources who said a missile struck Sa' ad while he was riding a motorcycle, and moderately injured a 12- year-old boy.
"We operated to eliminate an imminent threat to the lives of Israeli civilians. The militant was planning further (rocket) attacks in the coming days," the IDF statement read.
It added that Sa'ad was involved in concealing and launching rockets at Israel on numerous occasions over the years, including during an eight-day war between Israel and Hamas in Nov. 2012, which began with the targeted killing of Hamas' military chief Ahmed Jabari, as well as during an escalation in March of that year.
"Gaza terrorists must know that there is a personal price to pay when planning and executing terror attacks against Israel," Lt. -Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman, said in the statement. " There is no immunity for those who partake in firing rockets."
"We targeted an integral component of Gaza's terrorist mechanism... to send a clear message of intolerance to the aggression from the Hamas territory," he said.
Israel is concerned that the understandings reached with Islamic group Hamas in lash November have eroded. Eighteen rockets have been fired into southern Israel since the start of the month, though most were launched by militant factions rivaling Hamas.
Last week, the IAF twice struck targets in Gaza in retaliation to eight rockets.
