'Senior Bomb-Maker' Killed in Gaza Work Accident

I had no idea the bomb-makers had rankings. I guess if you survive an apprenticeship you move up the ranks to senior-level status.

Whatever the case, that's the last stop for this animal.

Naturally, Israel gets blamed.

An explosion destroyed a Hamas bomb-maker's house in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least four people, including a baby, in what Hamas called an Israeli air strike and Israel described as an internal blast.

The explosion, which also wounded about 25 people, destroyed the two-storey dwelling and damaged several other homes in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, an area from which militants frequently fire rockets into southern Israel.

Hamas said an Israeli aircraft attacked the house belonging to Ahmed Hamouda, whom it described as one of its senior bomb-makers. An Israeli military spokeswoman denied any Israeli involvement.

"It was not related to the IDF (Israel Defence Forces). There were no IDF operations. It was an internal explosion," an Israeli military spokeswoman said in Tel Aviv.

Medical workers said at least four people, including an infant, were killed. Hamouda's fate was not immediately known.

"The Beit Lahiya massacre was caused by an Israeli strike that targeted a Qassam leader," Hamas said in a statement, referring to its armed wing.

Hamouda's fate was not known? I'll assume the pieces were scattered.

Update: Barack Obama's friends from Hamas admit it wasn't Israel behind it.

Hamas implicitly admitted on Friday that a massive house blast that killed seven of its fighters and a four-month-old baby in the Gaza Strip was not caused by Israeli forces.

"Members of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades were trying to prepare for a Jihad operation," the Islamist movement's armed wing said in a statement.

It said six members of the brigades were killed in the blast in Beit Lahya. A local leader of the Hamas armed wing died of his wounds on Friday, one day after his four-month-old baby died in the explosion, a doctor at Shiffa hospital in Gaza City said.

There have been several cases in the past when militants accidentally set off deadly blasts while assembling makeshift explosive devices.

About 50 people were wounded, among them 15 children, in Thursday's explosion, according to the head of emergency services in Gaza, Muawiya Hassanin.