Top Hamas commander Raad Saad was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Saturday afternoon, an Israeli official said, in an escalatory move that appeared to be an Israeli violation of the ceasefire with the terror group.
Without naming Saad, the Israel Defense Forces in a statement confirmed having targeted a “key” Hamas member, who in recent months was “involved in efforts to restore and manufacture the group’s weapons.”
The military did not explicitly say that the target’s actions violated the truce-hostage deal that Israel and Hamas secured on October 9.
The strike hit a vehicle traveling along the coastal Rashid Road, on the Hamas-controlled side of the Gaza ceasefire line, according to Palestinian media, which reported four people killed and over 20 injured.
An Israeli official said that Saad was confirmed to have been killed in the airstrike on the vehicle. The strike was carried out following fresh intelligence on Saad’s whereabouts, according to the official.
Saad is among the few remaining members of Hamas’s top military brass in the Gaza Strip and is considered only second to the terror group’s latest military chief, Izz al-Din Haddad.
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Saad previously served as commander of Hamas’s Gaza City Brigade, and later as chief of the terror group’s operations division.
In the latter role, Saad was one of the architects of the terror group’s plan to invade Israel and defeat the IDF’s Gaza Division — codenamed “Jericho’s Walls” in the army — which was ultimately activated on October 7, 2023, sparking the war in Gaza.
More recently, Saad has served as chief of Hamas’s weapons manufacturing headquarters and a deputy to al-Hadadd.
Saad survived several Israeli assassination attempts during the war, the latest of which was carried out in June 2024. He was believed to be at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital when Israel raided the medical center in March that year, though he apparently managed to flee at the time.
Israel did not give the US advanced notice before the airstrike, according to the Axios news site.
“This crime confirms again that the occupation is deliberately seeking to undermine the ceasefire agreement and thwart it with continuously escalating violations,” Hamas said in a statement on the strike, without mentioning Saad.
Israel “bears the full responsibility for the results of its crimes against our Palestinian nation,” the terrorist organization added. It also demanded that “mediators and countries that are guarantors of the agreement assume their responsibility surrounding these blatant violations and move urgently to restrain” Israel.
IDF: Two reservists lightly hurt by explosive in southern Gaza
In a separate incident Saturday, two reserve soldiers were lightly wounded by an explosive device in the southern Gaza Strip, the military said.
According to the IDF, the bomb exploded while soldiers were working to clear the area of terror infrastructure. They were taken to a hospital and their families were notified, the army said.
The IDF did not link the incident to the Gaza City assassination attempt that took place hours later.
Meanwhile, the IDF said Saturday it killed a Palestinian terror operative who crossed the Gaza ceasefire line in the Strip’s south a day earlier.
In a statement, the IDF said two operatives were identified crossing the Yellow Line and approaching troops of the 7th Armored Brigade “in a way that posed an immediate threat.”
“The troops eliminated one terrorist to remove the threat,” the army said.
Palestinian media reported another person killed by IDF gunfire Saturday morning in Jabalia, in northern Gaza. He was identified as Mohammed Sabri Al-Adham, 19.
According to WAFA, the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, he was killed in the Nazla area of Jabalia, on the Hamas-controlled side of the Gaza ceasefire line. The IDF did not immediately comment.
????الشهيد محمد صبري الأدهم الذي ارتقى برصاص الاحتلال صباح اليوم في جباليا شمال قطاع غزة.
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Hamas says more than 70,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
Israel says it has killed over 22,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught. Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools and mosques.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 476. The toll includes two police officers and three Defense Ministry civilian contractors.
