One of the three senior Islamic Jihad commanders who was eliminated in the Gaza Strip overnight Monday following the launch of Operation Shield and Arrow was responsible for the 2004 attack in which Tali Hatuel, h’yd, and her four daughters, h’yd were killed.

The attack occurred in the Gaza Strip in May 2004, over a year before the disengagement. The terrorists opened fire at the car driven by Tali, 34, who was eight months pregnant. They then approached the car and shot Tali and her four daughters, ages two to eleven, at point-blank range.

Overnight Monday, 19 years and a week after the attack, Islamic Jihad senior commander Jahed Ahnam, 62, who was involved in planning the murderous attack, was killed in the first airstrikes of Operation Shield and Arrow.

Dovid Hatuel, the husband and father of the victims, responded to the attack by saying that “this sends a clear message to the murderers that the people of Israel will always reach those who harm them. They won’t have a safe place on earth as long as they harm us.”

“In my name and in the name of the entire family, I thank Hakadosh Baruch Hu and the security forces for the elimination of those who were responsible for planning the murderous attack of my wife Tali and our four daughters, Hila, Hadar, Roni and Meirav, exactly 19 years ago. We act according to eternal values and not out of revenge.”

Dovid later remarried and Baruch Hashem has six children with his second wife.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)