The military announced Saturday that a Hamas militant who led a unit of commando troops who gunned down civilians in last week’s onslaught on southern Israel was killed in an air strike.
Israeli military “aircraft killed Ali Qadi, a company commander of the Hamas ‘Nukhba’ (elite) commando force,” a statement said without specifying the location or timing of the strike.
A Hamas official told AFP the Palestinian group had “no comment” concerning the Israeli claim.
The officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged Qadi, 37, was a unit leader in Hamas’ elite group.
According to both the Palestinian official and the Israeli military announcement, Qadi was one of over 1,000 Palestinian detainees freed by Israel in 2011 in return for a soldier, Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by Hamas in 2006.
Qadi was arrested by Israel in 2005 for the kidnapping and murder of an Israeli man who was recognized as a broker for the Shin Bet internal security agency at the time.
On October 7, Hamas militants breached the militarized security barrier around the Gaza Strip, killing over 1,300 people in southern Israel, provoking a retaliation Israeli assault that killed at least 2,215 people in Gaza.