IDF says Gaza strikes killed two men who moved Iranian and Turkish money to Hamas

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israel Security Agency, better known as the Shin Bet, said in a joint statement on Sunday that Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip last week killed two men who had helped route money to Hamas. According to the IDF spokesperson, a strike in the Gaza City area on Wednesday killed Alaa Ibrahim Nimer Arshi, whom the military described as a cell commander in Hamas's military wing. A separate strike on Tuesday in the Nuseirat area killed Karam Riyad Hassan Abu Butaihan, identified as a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The military said both men had, over the course of the war, been involved in moving millions of shekels from Iran and Turkey to the Hamas military wing. In a post on X, the IDF said the two were targeted to remove the threat they posed, and added that it had also struck and dismantled a weapons storage facility in central Gaza that it said Hamas's military wing had been using. The Times of Israel, Ynet, N12 and other Israeli outlets carried the announcement shortly after it was released.

Who made the announcement

The IDF is Israel's military. The Shin Bet is the country's internal security service, responsible for counterterrorism intelligence inside Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Joint statements from the two bodies typically indicate that the Shin Bet supplied intelligence used to identify and locate the people targeted, while the military carried out the strikes. The statement did not describe the specific division of labour in this case.

Both the IDF's Telegram channel and its account on X carried versions of the statement. Hebrew-language outlets, including News.co.il and Abu Ali Express, published the Hebrew text, which refers to the money as coming from what it calls the Iranian terror regime and from Turkey.

The two men named

Arshi was described by the military as a commander of a cell, a small operational unit, within the armed wing of Hamas, the Islamist movement that has controlled Gaza. Abu Butaihan was described as an operative of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a separate armed Palestinian faction in Gaza that has long been backed by Iran. According to the Hebrew statement, Abu Butaihan worked on transferring funds to Hamas's military wing, which would mean a member of one faction was handling money for another.

Hebrew versions of the statement spell Arshi's surname in two slightly different ways, a difference in transliteration from Arabic rather than a disagreement over identity.

Where the strikes took place

Gaza City is the largest urban area in the Gaza Strip, in its north. Nuseirat lies in the central part of the Strip and includes one of Gaza's long-established refugee camps. The weapons storage site the military said it dismantled was described only as being in central Gaza.

Money from Iran and Turkey

The shekel is Israel's currency, and it also circulates widely in Gaza, which is why the sums are expressed in shekels. Israel has long accused Iran of financing and arming both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Turkey has hosted Hamas political figures, and Israeli officials have repeatedly accused it of allowing the group to raise or move funds through its territory. The statement linked the two men to money arriving from both countries but did not explain how the funds travelled or who sent them.

Israel has frequently publicised strikes on people it says handle Hamas finances, presenting the group's funding networks as a target alongside its fighters and weapons.

What the reports do not say

The announcement gives no figure beyond "millions of shekels" and no time frame other than "throughout the war". It does not say how the money was moved from Iran or Turkey into Gaza, whether through cash couriers, exchange houses or other channels, or who the intermediaries were. It does not say whether anyone else was killed or injured in either strike, and no account from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad or Gaza authorities appears in the material. The military did not specify what was stored at the weapons facility, as the available text of its statement is cut off at that point. None of the claims about the men's roles have been independently confirmed; all of them come from the IDF and the Shin Bet.