The Israeli military announced Saturday that an air strike in the Gaza Strip killed Walid Haniyeh, the nephew of former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh [1, 2].

The operation targets high-ranking members of Hamas's military infrastructure who directed the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. By eliminating commanders with direct ties to the massacre, Israel seeks to degrade the operational capacity of Hamas's most specialized units.

Haniyeh served as a deputy commander of a company within the Nukhba Force [1], which is Hamas's elite military unit. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the strike took place on Thursday [1, 3].

According to the IDF, Haniyeh directed terrorists during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel [2, 4]. The military said that the strike was part of a broader effort to retaliate against those responsible for the massacre [2, 4].

While the IDF identified the target as Walid Haniyeh, other reports from different outlets have cited conflicting names for commanders killed in similar operations. Some reports mentioned individuals named Yousef Ayesh Awad Ramadan, or Izz al-Din al-Haddad [5, 6]. However, the IDF specifically linked the death of the nephew of the former Hamas chief to this recent operation [1].

Walid Haniyeh's position as a deputy commander in the Nukhba Force placed him in a critical leadership role within the military wing of the organization [1]. The IDF continues to target these cells across the Gaza Strip as part of its ongoing campaign.

“Walid Haniyeh served as a deputy commander of a company within the Nukhba Force”

The targeting of Walid Haniyeh represents a strategic effort by Israel to dismantle the leadership hierarchy of the Nukhba Force. Because Haniyeh was both a tactical commander on October 7 and a relative of a former top political leader, his death serves as both a military degradation of Hamas's elite forces and a symbolic blow to the organization's internal lineage.