The Israel Defense Forces has eliminated a Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander who led a terrorist cell that took hostages during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, the military said on Tuesday.
Muhammad Khalil Muhammad Aslam, identified as a platoon commander of an Islamic Jihad Nukhba cell, was killed in an airstrike in the Khan Yunis area of southern Gaza, according to the statement.
“In recent months, Aslam advanced attacks targeting IDF troops and Israeli civilians,” it stated. “The terrorist posed an immediate threat and was eliminated in a precise aerial strike.”
Soldiers remain deployed in the enclave in accordance with the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement “and will continue to operate to remove any immediate threat,” it said.
The current ceasefire went into effect in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 10, 2025, ending the two-year war that began when Hamas, other Palestinian terrorist groups and Gazan civilians invaded the northwestern Negev on Oct. 7, 2023.
