The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday struck a Hamas terrorist cell that had been planning an attack on its soldiers, killing seven operatives, including two who infiltrated into Israeli territory during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.
Rami Ibrahim Harb and Mutaeb Ziyad Darah, members of Hamas’s Nukhba Force, “infiltrated into Israeli territory during the brutal October 7th massacre,” the military said in its statement on Monday evening.
Other members of the eliminated cell were identified as Abd Muhammad Amtsi—a member of the Popular Resistance Committees that coordinates with Hamas—and Tawfiq Khaldi, a Hamas terrorist.
“Alongside the terrorists, three additional terrorists were eliminated,” it said, adding that troops remain deployed in accordance with the truce deal “and will continue to operate to remove any immediate threat.”
The current Gaza ceasefire went into effect on Oct. 10, 2025, ending the two-year war that started when Hamas, other Palestinian terror groups and Gazan “civilians” invaded the western Negev on Oct. 7, 2023, and slaughtered approximately 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 others.
Representatives of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, that oversees the truce, met with Hamas in Cairo in an attempt to preserve the ceasefire amid the war on Iran, sources told Reuters on Monday.
The three anonymous sources said the Hamas representatives warned the board that the terror group could renege on past commitments if Israel maintains restrictions on Gaza imposed during the Iran war.
Following the Cairo meeting, Jerusalem announced on Sunday that it was planning to reopen the sole crossing for pedestrians between Gaza and Egypt, which has been shuttered since the Iran war started on Feb. 28.
One of the sources told Reuters he believed that Israel’s announcement was a direct result of the meeting between the terrorists and the Board of Peace.
