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Top Hamas aide who held hostages during war killed in strike on Khan Younis
A Hamas company commander who held hostages before and during the Gaza war, and served as the “right-hand man” of senior leaders in the terror group, was killed in an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet announced on Friday.
The strike on Thursday in Khan Younis killed Anas Mahmoud Ahmad Hamdan, identified by the military as a company commander in the terror group who served as a “central figure in holding hostages in the Gaza Strip and in the process of their return to Israel.” He was also responsible for Hamas’s propaganda in the Khan Younis Brigade.
“In addition, Hamdan served for years, including during the war, as the right-hand man of senior military wing leaders Muhammad Deif and Rafa’a Salameh,” the IDF and Shin Bet said.
During the war, Hamdan held hostages and was “responsible for documenting the hostages during the release ceremonies,” the IDF said, adding that before the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, onslaught that began the Gaza war, he was tasked with holding Avera Mengistu hostage.
Mengistu entered the Gaza Strip of his own accord in 2014, amid mental distress. He was arrested by Hamas shortly after entering the coastal enclave and was released as part of the October ceasefire deal after 3,821 days in captivity.
The military said that Hamdan was targeted because he was recently involved in training terrorists and attempted to advance attacks on troops and Israeli civilians.
“The terrorist posed a threat to our forces operating in the Gaza Strip and was eliminated in precise aerial strikes,” the military added.
Separately, Hamas-affiliated media outlets in Gaza reported that eight people were killed and 19 others wounded in a strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on Friday.
According to the reports, a drone struck people attending a funeral.
The IDF has not yet commented on the reports.
The deaths add to a toll of more than 1,100 Palestinians killed by Israeli strikes since an October ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect, according to Gazan health officials and the Hamas-run health ministry in the territory. The figure doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants and is unverified, but the IDF has in the past found the Hamas health ministry figures to be generally reliable.
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Gunmen have carried out shooting attacks on troops in the Strip, and Israel says its strikes are in response to those and other violations. Five Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire began in October.
According to a Times of Israel analysis, the IDF has stepped up a large-scale retribution campaign in the past few months with the avowed aim of hunting down and eliminating every single terrorist who took part in the October 7 massacre.
Hamas-led terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages to Gaza during the attack in southern Israel.
Separately on Friday, an interceptor missile was launched at a “false identification” over the southern Gaza Strip, the military said.
No sirens sounded as no towns were under threat. The IDF said there was no actual attack and the incident is under further investigation.
Israel now controls more than 60 percent of the Gaza Strip’s territory, beyond the portion of the enclave that Israel was allowed to temporarily hold as part of an October 2025 ceasefire deal with Hamas.
In May, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he ordered the IDF to take control of 70% of the Gaza Strip. At the start of the truce, the military controlled around 53% of the war-torn enclave, with Hamas controlling the other 47%, where nearly all of the Strip’s two million residents live.
Trump’s Gaza peace plan envisions, in its second phase, allowing a US-backed Palestinian technocratic committee to assume power from Hamas, the deployment of an international security force, and the start of the reconstruction of Gaza, which has been devastated by the war.
Israeli military’s withdrawal from the strip is dependent on the disarmament of Hamas. Ongoing talks on the matter have seen little progress, according to sources close to the talks, who said there had been little progress amid deep distrust between the sides.
