IDF says Gaza strikes killed operatives who breached ceasefire

Update, 17 September, 09:08 Israel time

The military has added a ceasefire claim to its account of the strikes. In an English-language post on X, the IDF said the men it named had recently advanced attacks against Israeli civilians as well as against soldiers, and described that activity as a systematic violation of the ceasefire.

The post also stated a rationale for the strikes, saying the operatives were killed in order to remove the threat the military says they posed. That is the first time the announcement has been framed in those terms; the earlier Hebrew-language reporting carried by Israeli outlets set out the men's alleged roles without reference to a ceasefire or to civilians as targets.

The IDF post does not name any of the three men, does not distinguish which of them belonged to Hamas and which to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and does not say when or where the attacks it refers to were said to have been planned or attempted. It gives no further detail on the strikes themselves, and it does not address whether anyone else was killed or wounded. No Palestinian authority or medical source is quoted, and neither Hamas nor Palestinian Islamic Jihad has been quoted responding to the claim. The military's assertion that a ceasefire was being violated is its own characterisation and is not corroborated in the material available here.

The story as first reported

The Israel Defense Forces said three operatives of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were killed in recent air strikes in the northern Gaza Strip, describing all three as involved in planning shooting and explosive attacks on Israeli soldiers. According to the IDF spokesperson's statement, a strike carried out earlier on Wednesday in the Tuffah area killed Said As'ad Said Akrim, whom the military identified as a commander in the Daraj Tuffah Battalion of Hamas's military wing.

The military said Akrim had recently been involved in planting explosive devices and in advancing shooting attacks against its troops. Times of Israel military correspondent Emanuel Fabian reported that the IDF attributed two further deaths to separate strikes the previous day in northern Gaza, one of them of a man the military named as Nimer Yasser Nimer Arshi. The announcement was carried by Israeli outlets within minutes of each other on Wednesday evening, with Ynet's alert service summarising it as the killing of three operatives in the northern Strip.

Who the IDF spokesperson is

The IDF spokesperson's unit is the official military communications body in Israel, and it is the source of almost all Israeli information about strikes inside Gaza. Its announcements typically name the person killed, state the organisation and unit he is said to have belonged to, and describe the activity the military attributes to him. Those claims are not independently confirmed by journalists on the ground in most cases, and the reports here all trace back to the same military statement rather than to separate reporting inside Gaza.

Where Tuffah and Daraj are

Tuffah is a neighbourhood in the north-eastern part of Gaza City, adjoining Daraj, another dense central district of the city. Hamas's military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, organises its forces geographically into brigades and battalions named after the areas they operate in, which is why the unit the IDF cites is called the Daraj Tuffah Battalion. A battalion commander in that structure is a mid-level field position rather than a member of the movement's top leadership.

The IDF described the strike area as the northern Gaza Strip, while the Times of Israel report placed the strike that killed Akrim in Gaza City. The two descriptions are not in conflict in Israeli military usage, where Gaza City falls within the northern part of the territory, but the material does not offer a more precise location than the neighbourhood name.

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad

Hamas has governed Gaza since it took control of the territory, and its armed wing is the largest force there. Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a smaller, separate armed faction that operates alongside it and maintains its own rocket and mortar units. Both are designated as terrorist organisations by Israel, the United States and the European Union. Israeli announcements often list operatives from both groups in a single statement, as here, where N12 reported the military saying the three men had led shooting and explosive-device plans against Israeli forces in the north of the Strip.

What the reports do not say

The material does not identify the third operative, nor does it give his organisation, rank or role. Fabian's report begins to describe Arshi as a rocket-related operative but the text available breaks off before the description is complete, so the specific function the IDF attributed to him is not established here.

The reports do not say whether anyone else was killed or wounded in the three strikes, and they contain no casualty figures from Palestinian authorities or medical sources in Gaza. There is no description of the munitions used, no statement of how the three men were located, and no timeline beyond "earlier today" for the Tuffah strike and the previous day for the two others. Neither Hamas nor Palestinian Islamic Jihad is quoted in the material, and there is no confirmation from either group that the men named were members. The reports also do not place the strikes in the context of any wider operation, and they give no indication of the state of any ceasefire or negotiations at the time.