By Jared Malsin

I went to the scene of the blast, and was able to snap a few photos before the police asked me to leave. The overturned frame of the car was a skeleton of twisted metal.

In the second photo below you can see a hole under where the driver’s seat of the car would have been.

A Palestinian police offer walks past the remains of a car destroyed in an Israeli “targeted killing.”

The burned-out skeleton of the car.

Daylight assassination

Israel assassinated a member of the salafist faction Jaysh Al-Islam (literally “Army of Islam”) in an apparent car-bombing in downtown Gaza City just before noon on Wednesday.

The man, Muhammad Al-Nimnim was killed by an explosion that totally destroyed the car he was driving, outside the Palestinian Authority passport office. It now appears he was killed by a bomb planted under the driver’s seat of the car. It was an assassination in broad daylight.

I went to the scene of the blast, and was able to snap a few photos before the police asked me to leave. The overturned frame of the car was a skeleton of twisted metal.

Police at the scene initially said the blast was caused by a bomb planted in the car. Here’s Ma’an’s report:

The military, which initially declined to comment, said Muhammad Jamal Nimnim was a senior leader in the Salafist military group Jaish Al-Islam (Army of Islam) and had been “personally involved in directing several terror attacks against Israeli targets in recent years.”

Nimnim was killed in his car in Gaza City, and one other man, who witnesses said was a passenger in the vehicle, was injured and taken to hospital. Several bystanders were also injured.

Palestinian witnesses and security officials told the German news agency DPA that the explosion in the car was caused by a bomb planted under the driver’s seat.

Lieutenant Colonel Avital Leibovich of the Israeli military told DPA, “I don’t want to tell you exactly how this happened, but he was targeted with a bomb.”

Earlier witnesses told Ma’an the explosion was the result of a bomb dropped by an unmanned Israeli drone. The Interior Ministry in Gaza also reported earlier in the day that the explosion was the result of a drone strike.

In its statement claiming the assassination, Israel’s army said Nimnim had recently assisted in “directing a terror attack against American and Israeli targets in the Sinai Peninsula, in cooperation with Hamas elements in the Gaza Strip.”

In the second photo below you can see a hole under where the driver’s seat of the car would have been.

Jaysh Al-Islam is the Al-Qaeda-aligned group that was responsible for the kidnapping of Alan Johnston. Their profile is sort of gangster-salafist.

Regardless, this was an extrajudicial killing, plain and simple. It was yet another reminder that even during moments of “calm” in Gaza, the situation can change instantaneously.

Source