IDF: 3 Hamas operatives, including two Oct. 7 terrorists, killed in weekend Gaza strikes

By Emanuel Fabian

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Today, 3:15 pm

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

Displaced Palestinians gather amid the rubble of a heavily damaged building being used as a shelter in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on September 19, 2026. (Bashar Taleb/AFP)

Two Hamas terrorists who invaded Israel during the October 7, 2023, onslaught and another member of the terror group’s elite Nukhba Force were killed in recent strikes in the Gaza Strip, the military and Shin Bet security agency announce.

A strike on Saturday killed Yahya Hamdouna, identified by the IDF and Shin Bet as a member of Hamas who invaded Israel on October 7.

The military and security agency say a separate strike over the weekend killed Mohammad Rafa’i, a member of Hamas’s Daraj-Tuffah Battalion who invaded Israel on October 7, and Basir al-Barsh, a Nukhba commander.

The three terrorists had been advancing attacks on troops and Israeli civilians, and acting to restore Hamas’s capabilities, “in systematic violation of the ceasefire,” the joint statement says, adding that they were killed “to remove the threat.”