From the Liveblog of
Friday, March 21, 2025
IDF says it killed Hamas south Gaza military intel chief in Thursday strike
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
The chief of Hamas’s military intelligence in the southern Gaza Strip was killed in an Israeli airstrike yesterday, the IDF and Shin Bet announce.
Osama Tabash, according to the IDF, also served as the head of Hamas’s surveillance and targets unit, in addition to heading the southern Gaza intelligence unit.
Tabash was a veteran member of Hamas and considered a “significant source of knowledge” in the terror group, serving in many key roles, including a battalion commander in Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, the joint IDF and Shin Bet statement says.
Images from November 2018 show Osama Tabash presenting then-Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh with the pistol of Lt. Col. Mahmoud Kheir el-Din, an Israeli commando who was killed in a botched intelligence-gathering operation in Khan Younis.
Tabash was the Hamas… https://t.co/MYVpFLiFcT pic.twitter.com/RuWUeRZurZ
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) March 21, 2025
“Over the years, he was involved in terror activities and directing attacks, including a suicide bombing carried out in 2005 at the Gush Katif junction in the Gaza Strip, in which Shin Bet coordinator Oded Sharon was killed,” the statement says.
The IDF and Shin Bet say that as part of his role as intelligence chief in southern Gaza, Tabash was responsible for “formulating Hamas’s combat strategy on the ground, coordinating Hamas’s intelligence in southern Gaza, and managing their activities in the area.”
“Additionally, over the past year, he was involved in Hamas’s force build-up efforts, and worked to rebuild its military capabilities following the harm it sustained during the war,” the statement says.
The military says that the surveillance and targets unit which Tabash also headed is responsible for collecting visual intelligence to create targets for Hamas, both in Israel and in the Gaza Strip.
As such, he was “responsible for planning and coordinating targets and infiltration objectives” during the October 7 onslaught.
During the war, Tabash’s unit was involved in gathering intelligence monitoring IDF operations in Gaza, and directing attacks on troops, the military says.
The IDF says his killing is a blow to Hamas’s “intelligence-gathering capabilities and its attempts to harm IDF troops operating in the area.”
The Times of Israel Community.