Israel says Hamas terrorist who participated in Oct. 7 attack killed in strike

A Hamas terrorist who participated in the October 7 onslaught and was planning attacks on troops was killed in an Israeli strike in the southern Gaza Strip last week, the IDF and Shin Bet announced on Sunday.

The military said that on Tuesday it struck and killed Sakr Abu Karim, a commander in Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force and the leader of the Hamas raid in the Kissufim area on October 7, 2023.

Throughout the war, Abu Karim advanced and carried out attacks on troops in Gaza, and recently, “he violated the ceasefire agreement and stored numerous weapons in his home, while attempting to rebuild the organization and conduct terrorist training to advance additional terror attack plans,” the IDF said.

Alongside Abu Karim, the IDF said, the strike killed another Hamas member who served as a communications operative.

Israel has reportedly compiled a list of all Palestinians who took part in the October 7 invasion and massacre, and is aiming to kill or arrest all of them. According to the Wall Street Journal, the initiative began immediately after the attack two and a half years ago, and “hundreds” have since been crossed off the list, from high-level terror commanders to civilians who crossed the border and joined the attacks.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas led a devastating invasion of southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. During the attack, terrorists slaughtered 14 out of the 270 residents of Kibbutz Kissufim and six foreign workers.

The October 7 invasion triggered a war in the Gaza Strip, which was halted by a shaky ceasefire in October 2025. Despite the deal, exchanges of fire have continued.

Media outlets affiliated with Hamas reported Sunday that Mohammed Abu Jiab, a fisherman in Gaza, was killed by IDF fire at sea off the coast of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

Since the start of the war in October 2023, Israel has enforced strict restrictions on access to the sea in Gaza, including opening fire on fishermen.

The IDF did not immediately comment on the reports.

Meanwhile, Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense service reported that Israeli strikes killed 10 people on Saturday, with Israel’s military saying one of the dead was a Hamas “terrorist cell commander.” The report did not distinguish between fighters and noncombatants.

In Gaza City, a drone strike killed eight people and wounded 15 in the Jawazat camp for displaced people, according to the civil defense.

The city’s Al-Shifa Hospital also reported receiving eight bodies.

“We targeted terrorists in that sector,” the Israeli army told AFP, without providing further details.

Further south, Muhannad Othman Farwana, 25, was killed in the morning in a strike on a tent, the civil defense said.

Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis said the man’s body had been brought in along with several wounded.

In a statement, the Israeli army said Farwana was “a terrorist cell commander in the military wing” of Hamas, adding he had been killed in a precision strike.

The strike hit his tent on the roof of his house just before he was due to get married later in the day, said his cousin Mohammed Farwana.

“The whole family was ready to celebrate his wedding. Now, we’re attending his funeral instead,” he told AFP.

The civil defense announced in the evening that another person had been killed in an Israeli strike in southeast Gaza City, identifying him as a 37-year-old man.

Israel and Hamas accuse each other of near-daily violations of the truce meant to halt the war in Gaza.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 72,000 people in the Strip have been killed during the war — including over 600 since the October 2025 ceasefire — though the toll does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

The Israeli military believes that Hamas’s overall toll is largely accurate, with IDF officials estimating that two to three civilians were killed for every dead terror operative.

The IDF says it has killed over 23,000 combatants in Gaza and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.

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.