IDF says Hamas terrorists who abducted, held hostages were killed in Gaza strike

The Israel Defense Forces said a strike targeting a cell of Hamas gunmen on Saturday killed a terrorist involved in abducting hostages on October 7, 2023, and two others who held another hostage in captivity in the Gaza Strip.

The strike overnight into Saturday in the central Gaza Strip killed seven people, according to the Hamas-run Gaza civil defense agency.

In response to a query by The Times of Israel on Saturday, the IDF said it had struck an armed cell of Hamas gunmen whose members had “approached the Yellow Line” and planned to carry out an “imminent” attack on Israeli forces stationed in the area.

Following a review of intelligence, the IDF said on Sunday that it could confirm that among those killed in the strike was Ali Sami Muhammad Shakra, a platoon commander in Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force.

The military said Shakra invaded Israel during the Hamas October 7 onslaught and took part in the abduction of hostages Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alon Ohel, Eliya Cohen, and Or Levy from a roadside bomb shelter near Re’im.

Also killed in the strike were Muhammad Mabhouh, a company commander in Hamas’s Bureij Battalion, and Muhammad Fuad Gasser Sayid, a Hamas platoon commander, according to the IDF.

The military said the pair took part in holding hostage Avinatan Or in Hamas captivity during the war. The IDF published a photo showing Sayid with Or in a Hamas tunnel.

Or, Ohel, Cohen, and Levy were released from Hamas captivity in hostage-ceasefire deals with the terror group in 2025, while Goldberg-Polin was murdered in captivity, and his body was recovered by the IDF in August 2024.

Other members of Hamas’s Nukhba Force were killed in the strike, “including terrorists who worked to launch rockets toward Israeli territory,” the army added.

Mahmoud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defense agency, which operates under the authority of the Hamas terror group, said an Israeli drone had fired two missiles close to a police post in the Al-Bureij refugee camp.

In addition to the seven dead, he said, several people were wounded, four of them critically.

The Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza said Saturday that it had received six bodies and seven wounded, “including four in critical condition because of direct impacts to the face, torso, and other parts of the body.” The nearby al-Awda hospital said it had received one fatality and two wounded.

The figures did not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Hamas and Israel have traded blame for violations of the ceasefire agreed last October, which halted two years of full-blown war.

The Gaza health ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, says Israeli fire has killed at least 700 people since the ceasefire began, though it does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. The figures cannot be independently verified.

Four IDF soldiers have been killed in attacks by Gazans over the same period. A fifth soldier was killed in a friendly fire incident.

Agencies contributed to this report.