The Israel Defense Forces eliminated a terrorist in Gaza on Friday who was in charge of abducting Shiri Bibas and her sons, 9-month-old Kfir and 4-year-old Ariel, and was in all likelihood involved in their murder, the military and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) said in a joint statement.
Mohammed Hassan Mohammed Awad infiltrated Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, 2023, in the wake of the Hamas-led assault on Israel’s western Negev, and “oversaw” the abduction of the Bibas family, the IDF said.
He was “most likely” involved in their murders and was also responsible for the abductions and burial of Gad and Judi Lynn Weinstein and of Thai farm workers, the army added.
On Oct. 7, Mohammed Awad entered Kibbutz Nir Oz “several times” and was one of the leaders of the massacre, according to the IDF and the Shin Bet. More than 40 residents of the kibbutz were slaughtered and 76 were kidnapped into the Strip.
Mohammed Awad was a senior commander in the Military Intelligence Array in the Gaza Strip, affiliated with senior commanders of the Palestinian Mujahideen terrorist organization, which is considered an even more radical Islamist group than Hamas.
The statement did not specify how or where the terrorist was killed.
In a separate operation, a Hamas terrorist who produced propaganda videos of Israeli hostages was eliminated by Israel last week, the IDF and Shin Bet stated.
The terrorist, Mohammed Saleh Mohammed al-Bardawil, “played a central role in Hamas’s propaganda apparatus, systematically spreading false information and leveraging media as a tool for psychological terror and to promote the murderous narrative of the Hamas terrorist organization,” the military said.
On Monday, the Palestinian Journalists Protection Committee announced that al-Bardawil, a “Palestinian journalist,” was killed in an airstrike in his apartment in Khan Yunis, alongside his wife and three children.
However, the Shin Bet said that he was an “integral part of Hamas’s incitement and terror infrastructure,” taking part in the cynical filming of Israeli hostages for Hamas’s propaganda.
Meanwhile, the IDF on Friday expanded its operation in the northern Gaza Strip.
Israeli troops have begun conducting ground activity in the Shejaiya neighborhood, southeast of the Old City of Gaza, to expand the security zone encircling the Strip, the army said.
“The troops eliminated numerous terrorists and dismantled Hamas terrorist infrastructure, including a command-and-control center that served Hamas terrorists to plan and execute terror attacks,” the statement read.
Civilians were allowed to flee the combat zones via safe passageways, it added.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir met on Friday with families of the remaining hostages and emphasized the objective of the operation in Gaza and the military’s commitment to the return of the hostages as a top priority, the army said in a separate statement.
Zamir “is expected to meet with additional families in the near future,” the military said.
The IDF resumed operations in the Gaza Strip on March 18, as the January ceasefire, which saw the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian security prisoners—including convicted terrorists with the blood of dozens of victims on their hands—fell apart. Since then, the IDF has killed several high- and mid-ranking “political” and “military” terrorists.
Though the IDF on Monday ordered a mass evacuation of Rafah and surrounding towns, military officials said currently no full-scale operation is planned in the southernmost Gazan city, Ynet reported.
