IDF says strikes killed two operatives who planted bombs in Gaza

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had killed two Palestinian operatives in the Gaza Strip in separate air strikes, both of whom it accused of planting explosive devices against Israeli troops. In a statement issued through its official channels, the military said a strike on Sunday in the Al-Shati area killed a man it named as Sabhi Hadr Al-Atham Al-Batrihi, described as an operative in Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

A second strike, which the military said took place last week, killed Ahmad Fuad Khalil Khalas. Emanuel Fabian, the military correspondent of the Times of Israel, reported that the IDF identified Khalas as a member of Hamas's Nukhba force and said he too had taken part in planting bombs aimed at Israeli soldiers. The announcements were relayed by Israeli outlets on Monday, with Ynet's alerts channel summarising the army's statement as the killing of two operatives who had laid explosive charges.

What the military said in its own words

Posting on X, the IDF said the two men "took part in planting explosive devices in Gaza and operated against IDF troops and Israeli civilians in systematic violation of the ceasefire," and that the strike was carried out "in order to remove the threat that they posed." That framing, an existing ceasefire being violated, is the legal and political justification the military has attached to this category of strike. The statement did not detail what evidence links either man to the specific devices described.

Where Al-Shati is

Al-Shati, also written Shati and often called the Beach Camp in English, is a densely built refugee camp on the Mediterranean shore in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, adjoining Gaza City. It was established for Palestinians displaced in the war surrounding Israel's founding and, like the Strip's other camps, long ago ceased to resemble a tented site: it is a permanent urban neighbourhood of multi-storey housing and narrow alleys, among the most crowded places in Gaza. Its location matters to how such strikes are read, because pinpoint attacks in that kind of terrain are the ones that most often produce disputes over civilian harm. The IDF statement made no reference to other casualties at the site.

Nukhba, and why the IDF names it

The Nukhba force, sometimes transliterated Nukba, is Hamas's commando echelon, the units the Israeli military identifies as having spearheaded the assault on communities in southern Israel that began the current war. Since then the IDF has routinely specified when a person it kills is described as a Nukhba member, a label that carries particular weight in Israeli public discourse. Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the organisation to which the military attributed the second man, is a separate armed faction in Gaza, smaller than Hamas, backed by Iran, and at times operating alongside Hamas and at times independently of it.

The devices at issue

Improvised explosive devices buried in rubble, roadsides and building entrances have been among the principal causes of Israeli military casualties in Gaza's ground fighting. The IDF has repeatedly said it targets those it identifies as involved in emplacing such charges. Neither the army's statement nor the reports specify when the devices attributed to the two men were planted, where, or whether any of them detonated.

A discrepancy in the naming

The two accounts of the Islamic Jihad operative's name do not match. The IDF's English-language statement gave the name as Sabhi Hadr Al-Atham Al-Batrihi, while the Times of Israel correspondent rendered it as Sabhi Khader al-Hashem al-Batrihi. Differences of this kind are common when Arabic names pass through Hebrew and then into English transliteration, but the middle elements of the name differ rather than merely their spelling. We report both as given rather than choosing between them.

What the reports do not say

The material available does not give the exact date of the earlier strike, only that it occurred last week, nor does it say where in Gaza that strike took place beyond the Strip itself. It does not describe the weapons used, the unit that carried out either attack, or the intelligence basis for identifying the two men.

There is no independent confirmation of the identities or affiliations of those killed, and no Palestinian account, from health authorities in Gaza, from Hamas or from Islamic Jihad, appears in the reports. Whether anyone else was killed or wounded in either strike is not addressed. The military's assertion that the men acted against Israeli civilians is stated without supporting detail, and the ceasefire arrangement it says was violated is not described in the statement. Every element of this account rests on the Israeli military's own announcement.