Commander who kidnapped Avinatan Or and Noa Argamani killed in Israeli strike, says IDF

By Emanuel Fabian

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31 July 2026, 2:07 pm

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Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent

Noa Argamani is seen being kidnapped by Hamas terrorists during the massacre at the Supernova desert rave in the south on October 7, 2023. (Screenshot used in accordance with clause 27a of the copyright law)

A top commander in the Mujahideen Brigades terror group, who took part in abducting Avinatan Or and Noa Argamani, and directed the abduction of Sudthisak Rinthalak during the October 7, 2023, onslaught, was killed in an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip this week, the IDF announces.

The military says the strike Tuesday in southern Gaza killed Ahmed Hussein Mohammed Kafina, commander of the central Gaza area in Mujahideen Brigades, a relatively small Hamas-allied terror group in the Strip.

“Kafina planned and directed the group’s terrorists’ raid into the territory of the State of Israel during the October 7 massacre, and took part in the abduction of Avinatan Or and Noa Argamani, and in directing the abduction of Sudthisak Rinthalak,” the military says.

The IDF justifies the strike amid the ceasefire by saying that Kafina had planned attacks on troops and Israeli civilians. “The terrorist posed an immediate threat to the troops and was eliminated in a precise aerial strike,” the military adds.

Rinthalak was killed in the onslaught and his body taken and later returned by Hamas, while Argamani was rescued by the IDF in 2024 and Or was released from Gaza last year.