The Israel Defense Forces this week struck and killed Muhammad Abd al-Aziz Abu Zubaida, the head of ISIS’s “Palestine District” in Gaza, in the Bureij area of the Strip.
Abu Zubaida was the senior-most figure in ISIS’s Gaza operations, responsible for setting policy, planning and overseeing the terrorist group’s activities in the enclave, as well as in Judea and Samaria and the Sinai Peninsula.
According to the military, ISIS has actively fought IDF troops in Gaza, while also facilitating the transfer of combat equipment and terror funds from Judea and Samaria into the Strip.
Last month, authorities indicted a 65-year-old man from the northern Israeli Bedouin town of Tuba-Zangariyye on charges of supporting terrorist groups, including Hamas, Al-Qaeda and ISIS. In May, Israeli forces arrested an Arab citizen “on suspicion of intending to carry out terror activity inspired by the Islamic State organization.”
As of March, at least 26 Israelis had sworn allegiance to ISIS and other terrorist organizations since the start of the war against Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Israel’s Kan News.
On July 25, the U.S. Central Command conducted a raid in the Aleppo Governorate of Syria, resulting in the death of senior ISIS leader Dhiya’ Zawba Muslih al-Hardani and his two sons.
