IDF says it hit senior Hamas support staff in Gaza strikes overnight

Overnight, the Israeli Air Force and Israeli Navy carried out strikes in the Gaza Strip, killing top commanders in Hamas’s general security mechanism, the military announces.

Hassan Labad, the deputy head of the security mechanism, along with senior officials Asem Shabir, Abdullah Abu Kaloub, and Mohammed Abu Marek, were killed in the strikes, the IDF says.

“The senior officials of the general security mechanism were eliminated to remove a threat, after they had recently been involved in attempts to rebuild the Hamas terror organization and in assisting the organization’s senior leadership in advancing terror activity against the State of Israel and IDF troops,” the military says in a statement.

The security mechanism, according to the military, is a clandestine Hamas body responsible for security for top Hamas officials, communications between them, coordinating their meetings, and transporting them between emergency sites.

The mechanism is also responsible for producing intelligence assessments, “which assists the organization’s senior leadership in decision-making and in carrying out terror plans against the State of Israel,” the IDF adds.