The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday eliminated a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist who abducted civilians during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and held them captive, the military said on Monday.
Zaher Brahim Khalil Abu Salem “took part in the abduction of Israeli civilians from their homes and in holding them hostage,” according to the statement.
In addition, he attempted to advance “numerous” attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians during the war sparked by the Hamas-led massacre, the IDF said.
“Abu Salem posed a threat to IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip and was eliminated in an aerial strike,” it added. “Prior to the strike, steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians, including the use of precise munitions and aerial surveillance.”
Soldiers remain deployed in the enclave in accordance with the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement “and will continue to operate to remove any threat,” the statement concluded.
The current truce 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. They murdered some 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 more into the enclave.
On Thursday, the IDF killed a Hamas commander who directed the kidnapping of civilians during the Oct. 7 attacks, the army announced over the weekend.
Walid Haniyeh, who served as the deputy commander of a Nukhba Force company in Hamas’s “military wing,” was a nephew of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh, whom Israel assassinated in Tehran in July 2024.
On Friday, the IDF killed three operatives in Hamas’s naval police unit, including the commander in the central camps sector, according to a separate statement on Sunday.
Mansour Sami Mahmoud Shahtout and two other terrorists “were traveling in a vehicle while armed with weapons, and as such posed a threat to IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip,” the army stated.
