Israel names Nukhba commander killed in Gaza strikes as Basir Al-Barsh

Update, 20 September, 17:08 Israel time

The Israeli military has named the Nukhba commander it says was killed, identifying him as Basir Al-Barsh. In an English-language post on X, the IDF listed him alongside Yahya Hamdouna and Muhammad Rafaei, using that spelling of the second name, and described all three as having been killed to remove the threat they posed.

The post repeated the Israeli assessment that the men had lately been advancing attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers and working to restore Hamas's capabilities, which it called a systematic breach of the ceasefire. The IDF again did not give locations, times or any account of what the men are said to have done during the October 7 assault, and it published no evidence for the identifications.

The name offered by the IDF sits close to the wording used earlier by N12, which had placed the unnamed commander on what it called the Alberash axis. Whether the broadcaster was referring to a location or to the man himself is not clarified in either text, and the IDF post makes no mention of an axis. Hamas has not responded in the material reviewed, and none of the claims about the three men has been independently confirmed.

The story as first reported

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israel Security Agency, the domestic intelligence service known in Hebrew as the Shin Bet, said on Sunday that strikes in the Gaza Strip over the weekend killed three members of Hamas, including a commander in the group's Nukhba force and two men who crossed into Israeli territory during the October 7 assault.

In a joint statement issued by the IDF spokesperson, the military said a strike on Saturday killed Yahya Hamdouna, described as a member of Hamas's military wing who entered Israel during the October 7 attack. The statement said further strikes over the weekend killed two other Hamas members, among them Muhammad Rafaei, identified as operating in the Daraj Tuffah area of Gaza City. Times of Israel military correspondent Emanuel Fabian, reporting the announcement, gave the second man's name as Mohammad Rafa'i and said the third person killed was a member of the Nukhba force.

What the Nukhba force is

Nukhba, an Arabic word meaning elite, is the name of Hamas's commando units. Its members spearheaded the cross-border assault of October 7, 2023, breaching the Gaza perimeter fence and attacking communities, army positions and a music festival in southern Israel. Since then the Israeli military has repeatedly announced the killing of individual Nukhba members and commanders, presenting each as a participant in that attack. The announcements are part of a broader Israeli policy of publicly naming operatives it says took part in the assault.

Where the strikes are said to have taken place

Daraj and Tuffah are adjacent neighbourhoods in the eastern part of Gaza City, in the north of the Gaza Strip. Hamas's military structure is organised geographically into brigades and battalions named after the areas they cover, and the Israeli military routinely identifies operatives by the battalion or sector in which it says they served. The IDF statement as published described Rafaei as a member of the Daraj Tuffah battalion; the text of the Telegram message available cuts off mid-sentence, so the full description in the original announcement is not visible in the material reviewed here.

The Israeli account of what the three were doing

The Israeli broadcaster N12, citing the defence establishment, reported that the three men, among them the Nukhba commander on the Alberash axis, had recently been working to rebuild Hamas's capabilities and to advance attacks against Israeli forces and Israeli civilians. N12's report said this activity amounted to a systematic violation of the ceasefire. That characterisation comes from Israeli security officials as relayed by the broadcaster, and is an assessment rather than an independently documented finding.

Ynet, one of Israel's largest news sites, issued a breaking alert summarising the joint announcement in the same terms: the IDF and Shin Bet had killed a Nukhba commander and two Hamas attackers who crossed into Israel on October 7.

How the announcement is structured

Joint IDF and Shin Bet announcements of this kind follow a standard pattern. The Shin Bet supplies intelligence identifying an individual and their location; the air force carries out the strike; and the two bodies then publish a shared statement naming the target and describing his role. The Shin Bet is responsible for internal security and counterterrorism intelligence and reports to the prime minister. It does not ordinarily comment on operations beyond these joint texts.

Israeli authorities do not typically publish evidence supporting the identification of those killed, and the announcements do not state whether anyone else was present at the sites struck.

Points of difference between the reports

The reports agree on the core claim: three Hamas members killed in Gaza over the weekend, two of them said to have taken part in the October 7 attack, one a Nukhba commander. They differ in transliteration of the second name, rendered as Muhammad Rafaei by the IDF spokesperson's English text and as Mohammad Rafa'i by Fabian. Only the N12 report places the Nukhba commander on the Alberash axis and names the other two men together in that context.

What the reports do not say

None of the material names the Nukhba commander. The announcements do not give the exact locations or times of the strikes beyond stating they took place over the weekend in the Gaza Strip, nor do they describe the specific actions attributed to Hamdouna or Rafaei on October 7. There is no information in the reports about casualties other than the three named or unnamed men, and no damage assessment. Hamas has not issued a response in the material reviewed, and there is no independent confirmation of the identities or of the Israeli account of the men's recent activity. The reports also do not set out the terms of the ceasefire that Israeli officials say was violated.