Israeli forces claim it has killed a top Hamas commander who has been known to be the mastermind behind past deadly attacks.

Taysir Mubasher, the Commander of the North Khan Yunis Battalion, was "eliminated" by the Israeli Air Force soldiers, the IAF announced on X Wednesday.

Mubasher was the former commander of the Hamas Naval force and has had "extensive military and command experience as a coordinator of terrorist attacks."

He was considered to be close to Hamas senior members "with an emphasis" on Muhammad Deif, the leader of the terror group's military wing.

"Mubasher was responsible for a number of murderous attacks against IDF soldiers and citizens of the State of Israel over the years," the IAF said. Including an attack on a school in 2002 that killed five students.

The IDF said it is believed Mubasher had produced the explosives that killed an IDF soldier during an explosion at an outpost in 2004, along with an earlier attack in 2003.

At least two-dozen American military personnel based in Iraq and Syria were injured in drone attacks last week that officials said were launched by Iran-backed proxy groups.

The largest attack carried out against a US base was on Oct. 18 when 20 troops suffered “minor injuries,” after numerous one-way drones targeted al-Tanf Garrison in southeastern Syria, US military officials said, according to the Washington Post.

All injured personnel have since returned to duty, the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the newspaper.

On the same day, multiple drones also targeted the US and its allies in two different attacks on Ain al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq that left four people with minor injuries, the Washington Post reported. Those injured also returned to duty.

REPORT

BEIRUT- The head of Lebanon's Hezbollah met with top leaders of the Palestinian factions Hamas and Islamic Jihad, according to a report by Hezbollah's al-Manar TV, saying they had assessed what their alliance must do to "achieve a real victory for the resistance" in Gaza.

The meeting grouped Hezbollah's Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, with Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri, and Islamic Jihad chief Ziad al-Nakhala, al-Manar reported.

"The meeting ... assessed the positions taken internationally and what the Axis of Resistance must do," a headline on al-Manar said, referring to an alliance of Iran, Palestinian militant groups, Syria, Lebanon's Hezbollah and other factions.

An alleged bigot accused of punching a Jewish woman in the face at a Manhattan subway station was arrested Tuesday and charged with a hate crime, the NYPD said.

Christopher D’Aguiar, 28, allegedly attacked the 29-year-old woman inside the 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue station on Oct. 14 and told her he slugged her because “you are Jewish,” according to police.

The victim suffered minor injuries, cops said.

D’Aguiar was charged with hate crime assault, aggravated harassment, assault and harassment, according to police.

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The Defense Department confirmed that it is sending Iron Dome defense systems to Israel.

"The U.S. will be flowing additional Iron Dome support to Israel," the defense official said, per Fox News. "As a result, the Department of Defense is currently engaged in planning to support the provision of U.S. Iron Dome batteries to Israel."

When Hamas attacked Israel, the Iron Dome neutralized 90% of rockets, according to the IDF. The defense system works by detecting incoming projectiles using a radar system from around 40 miles away.

Reps. Jared Moskowitz and Brian Mast proposed that the U.S. share its Iron Dome technologies with Israel since the nation has two that are "sitting idle and not being used."

"Every time the Iron Dome is used, it saves thousands of innocent Israeli and Palestinian lives from Hamas terrorists," Moskowitz said. "Now more than ever, the United States must stand with Israel in their war against terrorists who wish nothing but to destroy Israel and the people that live there."

A small cell of Hamas terrorists used old-school landline phones specially installed in the “spider web’’ of tunnels under Gaza to evade Israeli intelligence forces for two years while plotting the group’s horrific Oct. 7 attack, a report revealed.

The hard-wired phone system allowed Hamas to communicate without being detected by Israel or the United States, sources told CNN Tuesday, catching the Jewish state by surprise with the attack that left about 1,400 dead.

Planning meetings were held in person whenever possible, and digital communications on cellphones and computers were avoided to ensure secrecy, the sources said.

Knowledge about the attack was also kept secret from the majority of Hamas’ fighting force until days before the shock assault in an effort to prevent any information from slipping out — even as the terrorists trained above ground without knowing their objective.

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The Big Apple has seen a spike in hate crimes since Hamas’ attack on Israel earlier this month — with nearly 60% of the heinous acts targeting the Jewish community, an NYPD official said Tuesday.

At least 51 hate crimes have been reported in the city since Oct. 9 — two days after the terrorist group’s unprecedented raid — and 30 of them were against Jewish victims, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at a press briefing.

“Of those 51 incidents, 30 of them were anti-Jewish. So, that’s where our increase over the last period is sitting,” Kenny said.

During the same period in 2022, only six anti-Jewish incidents were reported, he told reporters.

Reports of hate crimes had been on the decline so far in 2023 compared to last year – but that number has been on the rise as the conflict rages in the Middle East, according to the police official.

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US intelligence officials said that an explosion at a Gaza hospital last week that reportedly killed anywhere from 100 to 300 people was caused by a Palestinian rocket breaking apart in midair, per CNN.

Images from the blast site and video analysis of the rocket's path are the latest evidence of the deadly ordeal.

The report states that the damage was consistent with that of a rocket and not a missile that had been fired from Israel.

"Given the sequence of events we can see in the videos and the geolocation of the launch based on those videos, our conclusion is that there was a catastrophic motor failure that likely occurred, which separated the motor and the warhead. The warhead landed in the hospital compound, and that was the second explosion and the much bigger one," the official said.

In the midst of massacres and kidnappings, an 85-year-old Israeli grandmother abducted and freed by Hamas terrorists has revealed what it was like being held in the terrifying maze of tunnels under Gaza.

Kibbutz resident Yocheved Lifshitz, one of an estimated 220 hostages taken violently by Hamas on October 7, endured a nightmarish two weeks as a prisoner in what she called a “spider’s web” of tunnels underneath the Gaza Strip before being released late Monday with another woman, 79-year-old Nurit Cooper.

“I’ve been through hell,” Lifshitz said, nearly whispering while talking to reporters at Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv.

“They went rampant in our kibbutz,” she said of the terrorists who invaded her home at the Nir Oz kibbutz in southern Israel.

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Hamas is following a fiendishly “calculated” blueprint in its hostage release to try to curry global favor — and it likely doesn’t include freeing any Israeli soldiers without major quid pro quo, a top expert says.

The move by the Palestinian terrorists to release an American mother and daughter first last week was probably designed to pressure the Biden administration into urging Israel to delay its planned scorched-earth ground invasion of the Gaza Strip to buy time in the hostage crisis, said former FBI agent and hostage-team expert Christopher O’Leary to The Post on Tuesday.

Hamas’ release of another pair of women, two elderly Israelis, late Monday was also a “very calculated” move — this time to try and show the world that it is “a legitimate negotiator with some kind of humanitarian leaning,” O’Leary said – even though the terrorists brutalized women and children during their bloody invasion of Israel on Oct. 7.

After former hostage Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, was released Monday, she revealed that she and a few of her fellow captives were separated from the main group into a smaller room in Hamas’ infamous “spiderweb” of Gaza tunnels.

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