IDF says 12 Oct. 7 terrorists killed in recent strikes, including Shejaiya Battalion chief
30 said killed in Wednesday attack that eliminated Haitham Razek Abd al-Karim Sheikh Khalil, who led attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz, and who is unit’s 4th commander killed since start of war
The IDF said Thursday that it had recently killed 12 terrorists who took part in the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, including the current head of Hamas’s Shejaiya Battalion, who led the devastating attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Haitham Razek Abd al-Karim Sheikh Khalil is the fourth head of the Shejaiya Battalion to be killed since the Hamas onslaught, during which thousands of terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, sparking the war.
He was killed Wednesday in an airstrike on Gaza City, in the Strip’s north, the IDF said. Palestinian media reported some 30 people were killed in the strike, which the military said targeted a Hamas command center.
“Several Hamas terrorists operated at the site to plan and carry out attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops,” the IDF said.
According to the IDF, Khalil “commanded the infiltration into Nahal Oz during the murderous massacre of October 7.”
The attack virtually destroyed the kibbutz and saw roughly one in four of its 400-odd members murdered or abducted.
Despite the dozens said to have been killed in the strike, the IDF said it had taken steps to mitigate harm to civilians, including by the use of “precision munitions,” aerial surveillance and other intelligence.
“The Hamas terror organization systematically violates international law while cruelly exploiting civilian buildings and the civilian population as human shields for its terror activities,” the military said.
During the war, Khalil planned and carried out attacks against Israeli troops in Gaza and worked to plant bombs in combat zones, according to the IDF.
Khalil previously headed a company in Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force, and was appointed to head the Shejaiya Battalion after his predecessor, Jamil Omar Jamil Wadiya, was killed in March.
Wadiya took over the battalion in December 2023. His predecessors, Wissam Farhat and Emad Qariqa, were killed on December 2 and 10, respectively.
11 other Oct. 7 terrorists killed
The IDF and Shin Bet said that 11 other Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists who invaded Israel during the October 7 onslaught were killed in recent airstrikes in Gaza.
Nine of them were killed in the military’s opening airstrikes on the Strip on March 18, when Israel resumed fighting in Gaza after a two-month ceasefire, the IDF said.
The terrorists had been involved in the murders and abductions of Israeli civilians and soldiers during the October 7 attack, according to the military.
The military identified the nine killed on March 18 as: Hassan Naam, responsible for the abduction of Sgt. Shaked Dahan; Ismail Shakhshah, responsible for murdering Israeli civilians, hurling grenades at innocents hiding in a roadside bomb shelter at Re’im Junction; Jalal Qaraan, who attacked the Reim-area Nova music festival and several IDF bases, filmed himself murdering two civilians, and took part in the murder of hostage Inbar Haiman; Mohammed Isa, who invaded Kibbutz Mefalsim and participated in the massacre there; Mohammed Sakar, who invaded Kibbutz Nir Oz and participated in the massacre there; and Mohammed Shabki, Fares Qarshin, Yahya Astal and Mohammed Astal, all of whom invaded unspecified areas of Israel on October 7, 2023, and participated in the onslaught.
Two more terrorists who took part in the onslaught were killed before March 18, the IDF said. These were Khaled al-Din, responsible for the murders of Israeli civilians during the attack and the “use of property” belonging to Erick Peretz, 58, and his 16-year-old daughter, Ruth, who were murdered at Nova; and Mohammed Asfor, involved in harming the abducted corpses of Col. Asaf Hamami, who led the Southern Brigade of the IDF’s Gaza Division, as well as Staff Sgt. Tomer Ahimas, and Sgt. Kiril Brodski, members of Hamami’s team.
On Thursday, the military said the Israeli Air Force had struck over 35 targets in Gaza over the past day.
WAFA, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, reported six people killed Thursday afternoon in a strike on Shejaiya, in eastern Gaza City; five people killed in an attack on the city’s center; and another person killed in an attack on Rafah, the Strip’s southernmost city.
Earlier Thursday, the agency reported three people, including a child, killed in attacks near southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, and another person killed in an attack on a tent housing displaced people in the town of Al-Zahra in the Strip’s center.
Footage released by the IDF on April 10, 2025, shows airstrikes in Gaza it says killed several terrorists who participated in the October 7 onslaught. (Israel Defense Forces)
The IDF said it targeted terror operatives, infrastructure, sniper posts and observation posts that posed a threat.
The strikes came as ground troops continued to operate across the Strip.
In the Morag Corridor area between Rafah and Khan Younis in southern Gaza, the IDF said its 36th Division killed several terror operatives and destroyed infrastructure used by Hamas.
In Rafah’s Tel Sultan neighborhood, troops of the Gaza Division destroyed several tunnel shafts and dozens of terror infrastructure sites, according to the military.
In northern Gaza, the IDF’s 252nd Division killed several operatives and destroyed buildings used by terror groups, the military said.
Israel assesses it has killed about 20,000 combatants in Gaza as of January, as well as some 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the Hamas onslaught.
According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, more than 50,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far. The toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Israel’s toll in the Gaza ground offensive and in military operations along the border stands at 410.
The Times of Israel Community.