IDF says two Hamas operatives killed in strikes in Bureij and Gaza City

The Israel Defense Forces said it killed two Hamas operatives in separate air strikes in the Gaza Strip this week, one of them a man the military says took part in the October 7 assault on Israeli communities. According to the IDF spokesperson, a strike on Wednesday in the area of Al-Bureij in central Gaza killed Muhammad Jamal Ahmad Eid, described by the military as a Nukhba commander in Hamas's military wing who infiltrated Israeli territory during the October 7 attack.

In a second strike, carried out on Tuesday in the Gaza City area, the military said it killed Saleh Ziad Ibrahim Miqdad, whom it identified as a figure in the naval component of Hamas's military wing. In its English statement on X, the IDF said both men had recently worked to advance attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers, to raise the readiness of Hamas operatives and to rebuild the group's capabilities, in what it called systematic violation of the ceasefire. The military said the strikes were carried out to remove the threat the two posed.

What the Nukhba Force is

Nukhba, an Arabic word meaning elite, is the name given to Hamas's commando units, trained for raids and cross border infiltration. Members of these units led the assault on Israeli border communities and army positions on October 7, 2023. Since then the Israeli military has repeatedly announced the killing of individual men it identifies as Nukhba operatives who crossed into Israel that day, and such announcements are typically framed by the IDF as the closing of accounts from that attack rather than as strikes on the group's current command structure.

Where the strikes took place

Bureij, rendered by the IDF as Al-Bureij, is one of the refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip, an area of dense built up blocks between Gaza City to the north and Khan Younis to the south. The camps of central Gaza have been a recurring location for Israeli air strikes throughout the war. The second strike was reported in the Gaza City area, in the north of the territory.

Hamas's naval array

The naval component of Hamas's military wing, which the IDF renders in English as the Naval Array, is the branch responsible for maritime operations, including attempted infiltrations of Israeli territory by sea and the use of divers and small craft. It has been a repeated target of Israeli strikes since the start of the war. The IDF has not published details of operations it attributes personally to Miqdad.

Where the accounts differ

The reports do not describe the two men in identical terms. The IDF's own statement on Telegram called Eid a Nukhba commander in Hamas's military wing, while Times of Israel military correspondent Emanuel Fabian reported that the IDF identified him as a member of the elite Nukhba Force, without the rank. On the second man, the IDF's Telegram post described Miqdad as a commander in the naval array, while the military's post on X and Fabian's report both specify the narrower rank of platoon commander.

There is also a difference in how the strikes are situated in time. The IDF dated the Bureij strike to Wednesday and the Gaza City strike to Tuesday. Fabian's report gave the same two days. A news alert from Ynet, the Hebrew news site, reported simply that two operatives had been killed in Gaza and that one of them had entered Israel on October 7, without specifying locations.

The ceasefire framing

The IDF's statement placed both killings in the context of a ceasefire, saying the men had acted in violation of it. The material available does not set out the terms of that ceasefire, when it took effect, or what mechanism governs claims of violation by either side. The military presented the strikes as targeted removals of a threat rather than as part of a wider operation.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports give a time of day for either strike, the type of munition or aircraft used, or the precise location within Bureij or Gaza City. There is no information on whether anyone else was killed or injured in either strike, and no casualty figures of any kind are given. Hamas has not issued a response in the material available, and there is no independent confirmation of the identities of the two men or of their claimed roles. The military did not describe what Eid is alleged to have done inside Israel on October 7, nor did it say how long it had been tracking either man. All details in this report rest on the IDF's account.