IDF says Gaza strikes killed two Hamas men, one a money exchange chief

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it killed two members of Hamas's military wing in separate air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Thursday. According to the IDF spokesperson, one strike in the Deir al-Balah area killed Jabr Moqbel, whom the military described as the head of the "Moqbel" money exchange network, which it says moved millions of shekels in foreign currency to Hamas.

The second strike, in the Khan Younis area, killed Hasan al-Batta, identified by the army as a sniper in Hamas's armed wing, the IDF said in a post on X. The military said both men had been working to push forward attacks on Israeli troops and civilians and to rebuild Hamas's capabilities "in systematic violation of the ceasefire", and that they were targeted "to remove the threat". The Times of Israel reported the announcement on Friday morning, as did the Israeli broadcaster N12 and the news site Ynet.

Where the strikes took place

Deir al-Balah is a city in the central part of the Gaza Strip, and Khan Younis lies in the south of the territory. The two strikes were described by the military as separate operations carried out on the same day. The Times of Israel's live coverage the same morning also referred to an IDF-held portion of Gaza, indicating that Israeli forces remain in control of part of the Strip while a ceasefire is formally in place.

What the IDF says the money network did

The military's case against Moqbel rests on finance rather than fighting. It described him as a figure in Hamas's military wing who led an exchange business that converted and transferred funds to the organisation. The IDF said the money was used by Hamas to pay its fighters, repair military infrastructure and prepare attacks against Israeli soldiers. The shekel is Israel's currency, and it also circulates widely in Gaza.

Money exchangers, businesses that swap currencies and send funds between people and places, play a large role in economies where formal banking is limited. Israel has for some time presented such businesses as one of the channels through which Hamas moves money, and the IDF framed this strike in those terms. The military has not published documents or other material to support its description of the network, and its account of Moqbel's role could not be checked against any other source in the reports available.

The ceasefire framing

The IDF's statement placed both killings within the terms of the current ceasefire, saying the two men were acting in breach of it. That language has become a standard part of Israeli military announcements about strikes in Gaza during the truce: the army describes targets as people advancing attacks or rebuilding Hamas's forces, and presents the strike as a response to a threat. Hamas's own response to the killings is not included in any of the reports.

A conflicting account

One source diverges from the military's version on several points. Abu Ali Express, an Israeli Telegram channel that follows Arabic-language media, reported that a man it named as Jabr Kamal Moqbel was killed in a strike on a Hyundai jeep in Deir al-Balah, and described the strike as having happened shortly before its post on Friday morning, rather than on Thursday. The channel described him as the owner of a currency exchange and money transfer business located on al-Jalaa Street, near the al-Ghafri traffic light, in Gaza City.

The same channel said that on the previous day a strike in Khan Younis had killed Mohammed Abu Alwan, whom it described as head of Hamas's finance department. The IDF, by contrast, named the person killed in Khan Younis as Hasan al-Batta, a sniper. The reports do not make clear whether these refer to the same strike, to two different strikes, or whether one of the accounts is mistaken. Israel.com is reporting both versions without resolving the difference.

What the reports do not say

• How much money the network is alleged to have moved beyond the phrase "millions of shekels", or over what period.
• Whether anyone else was killed or injured in either strike.
• Exactly when on Thursday the strikes took place, and why the timing given by Abu Ali Express differs from the military's.
• Whether Mohammed Abu Alwan, named by one channel, was killed, and if so by whom and where.
• Any response from Hamas, from health officials in Gaza, or from the mediators involved in the ceasefire.
• What evidence underlies the IDF's claims about the two men's activities.