Israel Says It Killed the Hamas Officer Who Moved Its Weapons

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Sunday 23 November 2025 that it had killed Alaa Hadidi, head of Hamas's supply and equipment department, in an air strike in Gaza the previous day. "Hadidi was a central knowledge center in the organization's supply and production field and served during the war as a conduit for transferring weapons from Hamas headquarters to battalions and commanders in the field for fighting against our forces," the military said.

The strikes followed a Hamas threat to end the ceasefire, itself triggered by a Palestinian gunman opening fire on Israeli troops in southern Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Office said five senior Hamas officials were killed in the air strikes that followed; a US official said the Trump administration supported the move. "The IDF will not tolerate attacks on our forces, and we will continue to target those responsible for terrorism," an Israeli military spokesperson said.

How the day began

By the military's account, the sequence started on Saturday morning when a gunman crossed the Yellow Line (the boundary dividing Israeli-controlled from Hamas-controlled Gaza), approaching Israeli troops in a vehicle while using the humanitarian corridor. Soldiers returned fire and killed him. "He aimed his weapon at our soldiers, endangering civilians in the area," the IDF said, releasing footage of the confrontation. Israeli warplanes then struck multiple Hamas positions across Gaza. The identities of the four other senior officials killed alongside Hadidi were not made public. "These strikes disrupt Hamas's ability to arm its fighters and threaten Israeli communities," Netanyahu said.

The line that made the shooting a violation

The Yellow Line exists because of the 20-point plan signed on 9 October 2025, under which the ceasefire took effect on 10 October and Israeli forces withdrew to an agreed line inside Gaza rather than leaving it. The line runs roughly 45 kilometres, is marked on the ground with yellow-painted concrete blocks, and when drawn left about 53 per cent of the Strip under Israeli control, according to the reference record of the boundary.

Reporting the same events, the Times of Israel noted that Gaza's Hamas-run civil defence body put the total dead at 21 across the day, a figure it described as unverified and not distinguishing civilians from combatants, and that a Hamas spokesman later denied the group had formally ended the truce.

The men in the Rafah tunnels

Separately, the IDF announced that it had accounted for all 17 Palestinian gunmen who tried to escape a Hamas tunnel on Israeli-controlled ground in eastern Rafah, after they emerged on Friday and sought to return to the Hamas side of the Yellow Line. "After a 24-hour operation, all infiltrators were either killed or captured," the military said. Such encounters continued for weeks: on 26 November the Times of Israel reported another six operatives leaving tunnels in the same area, and said the military had reported killing more than 20 operatives and capturing eight more over the preceding week.

What the war is still holding

Around 1,200 people were killed and 252 Israelis and foreigners taken captive by Hamas in the 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel. At the time of this announcement, the bodies of two Israelis and one Thai national were still held in Gaza.

What is still unclear

The military did not identify the four other senior Hamas figures killed with Hadidi, or say where in Gaza any of the strikes fell. It gave no casualty figure of its own for the strikes, did not say how Hadidi was located, and did not name the gunman killed at the Yellow Line.