Israeli Commando Raid in Gaza Kills Four, Including Two Children, Palestinian Officials Confirm

The Israeli government announced on Tuesday that its forces had captured a senior Hamas official in Gaza, an operation that Palestinian authorities said resulted in the deaths of at least four individuals, including two children.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the captured individual was the head of Hamas’s internal security forces, though he did not disclose the person’s name. The operation marked a rare daytime incursion into Hamas-controlled territory in Gaza, occurring despite a nominal cease-fire in the region.

Hamas subsequently confirmed the capture of one of its internal security officers, identifying him as Moeen al-Arabeed. In a statement, the group’s interior ministry announced that Mr. al-Arabeed’s wife was killed during the confrontation.

The group condemned the operation as the latest violation of the truce that commenced last October. It further stated that it had filed a protest with Nikolay Mladenov, a senior official on President Trump’s Board of Peace, which was established to oversee the cease-fire.

While many details of the raid remained unclear, the Israeli military stated that special forces affiliated with the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, had targeted a building in Gaza to capture the Hamas official. The military declined to comment on reports regarding the deaths of children during the operation.

The Hamas-run government stated in a release that Israel had dispatched covert operatives into Gaza City, but they were subsequently discovered, prompting Israeli forces to bombard the area to facilitate their extraction.

The Israeli military asserted that it had struck several targets to protect its ground forces. Mohammad Abu Aisha, a resident of Gaza City, described in an interview hearing gunfire and witnessing a struck vehicle.

The Civil Defense rescue service confirmed that four people, including two children, were killed in the Israeli raid. Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Gaza City’s Al Shifa Hospital, reported that the casualties were transported to his facility.

Ismail Thawabteh, a spokesman for the Hamas-run government, noted that it remained unclear whether Israeli forces conducted the raid independently or collaborated with members of Israeli-backed Palestinian militias inside Gaza. The Israeli military declined to comment on this possibility.

More than ten months after the Trump administration helped broker a truce in Gaza, Israel has continued to bombard the territory on a near-daily basis. While mediators had hoped the cease-fire would lead to an end to the two-year conflict between Israel and Hamas, the ongoing situation on the ground closely resembles a state of war rather than peace.

According to health officials in Gaza, more than 1,300 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since the cease-fire was implemented. This cease-fire secured the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas following the October 2023 attack on Israel that initiated the war. However, the officials’ tally does not specify how many of the deceased were combatants.

As part of the cease-fire agreement, the Israeli military withdrew to an established line inside Gaza but continues to control more than half of the territory. The Israeli-controlled zone was heavily devastated during the war, and although most Palestinian residents were displaced, many of those who remain are affiliated with a few Gazan militias that oppose Hamas and are backed by Israel.

The vast majority of Gaza’s two million Palestinian residents are crowded into a small coastal enclave where Hamas remains entrenched. Aid officials have noted that while food is now more accessible than during the peak of the war—when many Gazans faced extreme hunger—the majority of the population continues to live in squalid tent camps or partially destroyed homes.

In late July, President Trump announced an agreement with Hamas that would require the group to relinquish its weapons, a key Israeli precondition for permitting large-scale reconstruction in Gaza. However, Prime Minister Netanyahu swiftly rejected the proposal, arguing that it would not be effective in disarming the militant group.

Saher Alghorra contributed reporting.

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