“The IDF has just struck the commander of the Rafah Brigade in the Hamas terrorist organization, following the elimination earlier this week of the commander of the Khan Yunis Brigade and other senior figures in the organization,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement on Tuesday night.
“Our message is clear: No terrorist is immune—and Hamas will not be in Gaza,” they added.
The Israel Defense Forces identified the Hamas commander as Nael Abu Obeid.
“Abu Obeid was a key figure among Hamas’s senior leadership,” the IDF said following the strike. “He was responsible for managing the activities of the brigade’s terrorists and directing them to advance and carry out terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops and to restore the brigade’s force buildup,” the military noted.
He was struck in southern Gaza, according to the army.
“We had already come close to killing him several times, but the attempts ultimately failed,” Israel’s broadcaster Channel 12 cited an IDF source as saying about the intelligence operations to locate Abu Obeid.
The IDF identified that the Hamas commander was not surrounded by civilians, and it was decided to carry out the strike, the source continued.
“People worked hard to obtain the intelligence. In the end, it all comes down to the people. We made an effort to carry this out as precisely and professionally as possible.”
IDF hits PIJ cell commander
Also on Tuesday, the IDF said it had eliminated in the Khan Younis area in southern Gaza a Palestinian Islamic Jihad cell commander who infiltrated the Kibbutz Kissufim area during the cross-border Hamas-led invasion into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
It named the terrorist Mohsen Farid Said Abu Hadaf, a rocket cell commander who was targeted over the weekend.
Recently, the terrorist advanced terror attacks against IDF troops and Israeli civilians in systematic violation of the ceasefire, the military said.
“Prior to the strike, measures were taken to mitigate harm to civilians, including the use of precise munitions and aerial surveillance,” the army added.
In addition, the IDF together with the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) overnight Monday struck and killed in the northern Gaza Strip the terrorist Ahmad Batash, commander of the Jabaliya Battalion of Hamas’s military wing, the security bodies said.
As part of his role, the terrorist was responsible for managing and organizing the Northern Gaza Brigade’s weapons and coordinated and facilitated the supply of weapons and military equipment to Hamas operatives, according to the IDF and ISA.
“The terrorist was eliminated in order to remove the threat he posed,” they added.
Israeli security forces “remain deployed in the area in accordance with the [ceasefire] agreement and will continue to operate to remove any threat,” the security bodies said.
IDF general says Hamas receives widespread support in Gaza
Maj. Gen. Yaniv Asor, head of IDF’s Southern Command, said on Tuesday that Iranian-backed Hamas enjoys widespread support in the Gaza Strip. Palestinians who oppose the terror group are “unable to influence reality,” he said.
Asor spoke at a ceremony marking the start of the Hebrew new year. Division and brigade commanders attended, along with heads of local authorities in the Western Negev, according to the IDF.
Hamas prepared for its Oct. 7, 2023, massacre “in the heart of a population that supports it, sympathizes with it and identifies with it,” Asor told attendees, stressing that “Hamas is not a ‘foreign entity’ in Gaza.”
The terror group “grew from within it, developed and was educated there, inside a radical and murderous Islamic culture,” he said.
Asor said that while the IDF distinguishes between the enemy and noncombatants, Hamas benefits both when civilians are harmed and when Israel’s efforts to avoid harming them constrain the military’s ability to strike terrorists.
“In the face of false claims, we will present facts; to difficult questions, we will respond honestly. And when a failure is revealed among us, we will examine, learn and correct,” he continued.
“We carry a torch of light and good, and we are fighting a great war against darkness and evil,” Asor said.
The general said IDF soldiers were operating near the ceasefire line to prevent Hamas from rebuilding its capabilities. He said the military has struck the terror group’s tunnels, weapons and weapons-production infrastructure, and would continue to “pursue and remove every threat posed to Israeli citizens.”
The ongoing War of Redemption began when some 6,000 terrorists from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Fatah, as well as unaffiliated Gazan civilians, infiltrated Israel’s southern border on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering some 1,200 people, wounding thousands and kidnapping 251.
