IDF kills three Hamas commanders, including Oct. 7 invader, in Gaza airstrikes

The Israel Defense Forces on Friday announced that three Hamas commanders were killed in airstrikes in Gaza, including one who raided the IDF’s Re’im base in southern Israel during the October 7, 2023, onslaught that sparked the subsequent war in the Strip.

Yahya Saeed Mohammed Hamdan, the commander of a cell in Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force, was killed in southern Gaza on Thursday, the military announced.

On October 7, Hamdan raided the Re’im base, which houses the headquarters of the IDF’s Gaza Division, according to the military.

Recently, Hamdan worked to advance attacks on troops, as well as to restore Hamas’s capabilities, and therefore, he “posed an immediate threat,” the IDF said.

A separate strike Thursday killed Osama Walid Deeb Muhareb, who was identified by the military as a company commander in Hamas’s Nuseirat Battalion.

Recently, Muhareb “stored explosive devices that were intended to be used against IDF troops,” the military said.

And a strike on Wednesday in northern Gaza killed Khalil Jamal Khalil Manna, whom the IDF identified as a commander in Hamas’s weapons production division.

Both Muhareb and Manna “posed a threat” to IDF troops and were therefore targeted in strikes, the army said.

The IDF in recent months has ramped up strikes on terror operatives in Gaza, saying they posed a threat to Israeli forces.

IDF demolishes five Hamas tunnels in north Gaza

Separately, the IDF said it recently demolished five Hamas tunnels spanning some two kilometers (1.2 miles) in the northern Gaza Strip, on the Israeli side of the ceasefire line. The demolition operations were led by reservists of the 14th Armored Brigade.

The IDF says it recently demolished five Hamas tunnels spanning some two kilometres in the northern Gaza Strip, on the Israeli side of the ceasefire line.

The demolition operations were led reservists of the 14th Armored Brigade. The brigade has now been withdrawn from Gaza and… pic.twitter.com/p1lxdgWOB5

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) July 10, 2026

The brigade has now been withdrawn from Gaza and replaced by the 179th Armored Brigade.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said this week that the IDF had demolished 83 percent of Hamas tunnels in the Israeli-held part of Gaza.

US straining to deploy 20 peacekeepers; pledged 20,000

Amid the continued violence, international mediators are having difficulty pushing forward the next stage of the peace plan.

After laying out a plan for the deployment of 20,000 international peacekeepers to secure postwar Gaza, the US is now struggling to deploy a small delegation of just 10 to 20 soldiers, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The delegation of Moroccan soldiers was supposed to deploy in June, but only to a base in southern Israel, rather than in Gaza, the newspaper reported, citing a US military official and other people familiar with the plans.

Now, the timeline for their deployment to Israel has been muddied and extended to sometime in the next few months, in the latest demonstration of how the US-controlled Board of Peace has stalled in its efforts to advance the reconstruction of Gaza.

US officials in December had claimed that the ISF would begin deploying in early 2026 — another prediction that didn’t pan out as attention shifted to the US-Israeli war in Iran.

During that war, one of the five countries that had pledged to contribute troops to the ISF, Indonesia, announced that it was putting the offer on hold due to regional instability.

Four other countries — Albania, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Morocco — are still committed to sending troops.

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has become increasingly unwilling to cooperate with the Board of Peace as October elections in Israel approach, and has dragged its feet in signing off on the agreements necessary for establishing legal guardrails around foreign military personnel stationed abroad.

ISF troops will be based at two sites — a nearly completed logistics hub on the Israeli side of the Kerem Shalom Border Crossing and a base inside Gaza, which hasn’t been built yet, the Journal said. The two sites are meant to accommodate about 5,500 ISF personnel.

The small Moroccan delegation will first be based at the hub inside Israel, and initially be tasked with expeditionary-style operations inside Gaza, like route reconnaissance, according to the report.

The Board of Peace also wants the first batch of ISF troops to help secure a pilot humanitarian zone it plans to build on the ruins of the southern Gaza city of Rafah. However, 10 to 20 soldiers would be a wildly insufficient number for that mission, given that the Emirati-funded enclave is meant to serve tens of thousands of Palestinians.

Construction on the compound hasn’t even begun, with a crew of Gaza land surveyors blocked from reaching the area by Hamas operatives at a checkpoint.

Israel defends detention of Gaza doctor/Hamas officer

Also Friday, Israel defended the detention of a Gaza hospital director and Hamas officer, who has been held since December 2024, was “lawful,” and rejected reports that he suffered a life-threatening condition.

Hussam Abu Safiya, one of the highest-profile Palestinian detainees, “is lawfully detained by Israel based on concrete intelligence,” Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva said on X.

“At no stage of his detention has he exhibited any indication of a life-threatening condition,” the mission said.

Abu Safiya holds the rank of colonel in the Hamas Military Medical Services, according to the service itself and Palestinian media reports.

The pediatrician and director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital rose to prominence in 2024 by posting about the dire conditions in his besieged hospital in Beit Lahia during a major Israeli offensive. Human rights groups have called for his release.

Israel said Abu Safiya “managed Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, operating it as one of Hamas’s terror hubs. Abu Safiya exploited his position at the hospital to divert humanitarian resources intended for civilian needs towards terrorist purposes. He enabled Hamas terrorist activity against Israeli forces during IDF operations in Gaza, posing a direct threat to Israel’s national security.”

The statement came after a United Nations investigative team and several UN rights experts this week raised an alarm about his case.

Four independent UN rights experts said in a statement on Tuesday that “Dr. Abu Safiya’s ongoing arbitrary detention without charges or trial is a reflection of Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian health workers.”

The UN’s independent Commission of Inquiry (CoI) on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories issued a separate statement on Wednesday voicing “grave concern at credible reports that Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya… has been subjected to continued and severe abuse” during his detention.

It called for his “immediate, unconditional and safe release.”

Israel said, however, that Abu Safiya’s “lawful detention is subject to regular administrative review and judicial oversight,” including by the Supreme Court last month.

The Israeli statement also said that “no indications were found to support the claims raised regarding his condition.”

Abu Safiya had been repeatedly examined by medical professionals, the statement said.

“He remains under continuous medical supervision and receives treatment in accordance with the professional determination of medical personnel,” the statement added.