IDF says Gaza City strike killed Hamas commander who held 3 hostages

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it has killed a Hamas commander who took part in holding Israeli hostages in Gaza City during the war. In a statement on its official Telegram channel, the military named him as Muhammad Muhsen Nimr Yazji, a commander in the Shati Battalion of Hamas's military wing, and said he was killed in a strike in the Gaza City area on Monday. According to the IDF, Yazji was involved in the captivity of Emily Damari, Romi Gonen and Matan Angrest.

The army said a separate strike on Tuesday, in the Sabra area of Gaza City, killed Muhammad Fawzi Muhammad Awad Gamal, whom it placed in Hamas's Daraj Tuffah Battalion. The Times of Israel reported that the military released a graphic showing both men on October 8, 2026, and that the IDF accused the pair of having recently moved forward with plans to attack Israeli troops and civilians and of working to rebuild Hamas's strength. The military said they were targeted to remove that threat.

Who the IDF says was killed

Both men are identified only through the military's own account. In a post on X, the IDF described Yazji as a commander and Gamal as a member of his battalion, using the word "terrorist" for both. The post said the two had advanced attacks and "operated to restore Hamas' capabilities."

Hamas organises its armed forces in Gaza into regional brigades made up of smaller battalions, often named after the neighbourhoods or districts where they operate. The IDF placed Yazji's activity within what it calls the Gaza City Brigade area. Shati is a densely built area on Gaza City's coastline, and Daraj and Tuffah are districts of the city; Sabra, where the military says Gamal was killed, is another Gaza City neighbourhood.

Other outlets carried the IDF account largely as issued. Ynet, the news site of the Yedioth Ahronoth group, ran a Hebrew-language alert quoting the military as saying it had killed a militant involved in holding the three hostages. The Jerusalem Post also reported the strikes, describing Yazji as a commander who held several former hostages.

The hostages named

Emily Damari, Romi Gonen and Matan Angrest are among the people abducted into Gaza during the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023. The Times of Israel refers to all three as former hostages. The IDF statement does not describe the conditions in which they were held or the period during which Yazji was allegedly involved, saying only that his role extended through the war.

Israel's military periodically announces the killing of Hamas members it links to hostage-holding, naming the captives concerned. These announcements serve partly as a public statement that those connected to the abductions are being pursued. The identification of individual captors usually rests on Israeli intelligence and, in some cases, on information from freed hostages, though the IDF did not say what sources it relied on in this case.

Differences in how the men are described

The reports agree on the names, the battalions, the locations and the days of the strikes, but they differ slightly in how they label the second man. The IDF's own wording calls Gamal a member, or "terrorist," of the Daraj Tuffah Battalion, and The Times of Israel calls him an operative. The Jerusalem Post's photo caption refers to both men as Hamas commanders. The military itself attributes command rank only to Yazji.

Joe Truzman, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote on X that he believed he had located Yazji in an older photograph and that it appeared to show an affiliation with Hamas. He presented this as his own assessment, and it has not been confirmed by the IDF or by other outlets.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports gives calendar dates for the strikes, only the weekdays supplied by the military. They do not say how the strikes were carried out, whether anyone else was killed or wounded, or what buildings or sites were hit. No reaction from Hamas appears in the material, and there is no independent confirmation of either death beyond the IDF's statements. The military did not detail the specific attacks it says the two men were planning, nor did it explain how it established Yazji's role in holding the three hostages. Whether the families of Damari, Gonen or Angrest were informed or have commented is also not addressed.