IDF says Gaza strikes killed two Nukhba members, one linked to Nir Oz raid

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it killed two members of Hamas's Nukhba force in two separate air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Saturday. One of the men, the military says, took part in the assault on Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas-led attack on Israel of October 7, 2023. In a statement on its official Telegram channel, the IDF spokesperson named him as Muhammad Kamel Masleh Qadih and said he was hit in the Khan Yunis area.

The second man was killed in a different strike in the Nuseirat area, according to the military, which identified him as Diaa Abd al-Mohsen Muhammad Abu al-Rous and described him as a Nukhba operative in Hamas's military wing. The Times of Israel, reporting the IDF announcement, placed Nuseirat in central Gaza and quoted the army as saying both men had recently been pushing forward attacks on soldiers and Israeli civilians while working to rebuild Hamas's capabilities.

What the IDF alleges against each man

For Qadih, the military makes two claims: that he entered Nir Oz on October 7, and that in his Hamas role he was responsible for the "operational readiness" of Nukhba fighters. That phrase appears in the IDF's own English statement. The army does not give further detail on what that responsibility involved.

For Abu al-Rous, the IDF statement identifies him only as a member of the Nukhba force. In its post on X, the IDF said the pair had recently promoted attacks targeting Israeli civilians and soldiers and had been rebuilding Hamas's capabilities, conduct it called a "systematic violation" of the ceasefire, and that they were struck to remove what it described as an immediate threat.

A separate claim about Abu al-Rous came from outside the military. Joe Truzman, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), wrote that Gaza's Ministry of Education had issued a statement saying Abu al-Rous was also a teacher at the Malaysian school. That detail rests on Truzman's account of the ministry statement; none of the other reports mention it.

What the Nukhba force is

Nukhba is the name Israel uses for the elite units of Hamas's armed wing. Since October 7, the term has become shorthand in Israeli media and military statements for the fighters who led the cross-border attack, and the IDF routinely notes when someone it kills belonged to the force or took part in that day's raids.

Nir Oz, Khan Younis and Nuseirat

Nir Oz is a kibbutz, a collective farming community, in southern Israel close to the Gaza border. It was among the communities attacked on October 7. Statements from the military linking a person killed in Gaza to Nir Oz are therefore read closely by Israeli audiences and by families of those affected.

Khan Younis, spelled Khan Yunis in the IDF's English text, is a city in the southern Gaza Strip. Nuseirat is in the centre of the territory, as The Times of Israel noted.

The ceasefire context

The IDF framed both strikes as a response to violations of the ceasefire in Gaza, saying the men were acting against its terms. The reports do not describe the ceasefire's provisions, and the military's description of the men's activity is its own; none of the material includes a response from Hamas.

How the reports differ

The accounts agree on the core facts: two men, two strikes, Khan Younis and Nuseirat, and the Nir Oz allegation against one of them. They differ on some details. The IDF's English Telegram statement and The Times of Israel both say the strikes took place on Saturday. The IDF's English post on X says the men were killed "last Saturday," while its Hebrew post, embedded in the Times of Israel report, uses a word meaning the day before yesterday. The Hebrew outlet News.co.il said only that the strikes happened over the weekend.

Names are also transliterated differently. The IDF writes Muhammad Kamel Masleh Qadih and Diaa Abd al-Mohsen Muhammad Abu al-Rous; The Times of Israel uses Mohammed Kamel Maslih Qdeih and Diaa Abdel Mohsen Mohammed Abu al-Rous; Truzman writes Diyaa Mohsen Abu al-Rous. These appear to be spelling variants of the same names rather than different people, but the reports do not address the point.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports say whether anyone else was killed or injured in either strike. They do not specify what attacks the two men were allegedly preparing, what Qadih is alleged to have done inside Nir Oz, or what evidence links him to the raid. The IDF's statements are the sole source for the men's roles in Hamas, and the claim that Abu al-Rous was a teacher comes only from Truzman's citation of the Gaza Ministry of Education. There is no comment from Hamas or from Gaza authorities on the strikes in the material available.