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From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, June 30, 2026
From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, June 30, 2026
IDF says it killed commander of Hamas battalion in Rafah who was a major arms smuggler
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleEmanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
The commander of the Yabna Battalion in Hamas’s Rafah Brigade was killed in an Israeli strike yesterday, the IDF and Shin Bet announce.
Mohammad Fathi Abd al-Hay Abu Fakher had recently been working to recruit new terrorists to the battalion, along with “attempting to restore the battalion’s capabilities in order to attack IDF troops,” the military says.
Abu Fakher was a veteran commander in Hamas, previously serving as a senior officer in the terror group’s supply department. The military says that for two decades he was “a central figure in the terrorist organization’s smuggling network,” leading efforts to bring weapons into the Gaza Strip.
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