The Israeli military and domestic security service Shin Bet announced Wednesday that they had eliminated Iyad Ahmed Abd al-Rahman Shambari, head of the operations department within Hamas's military intelligence headquarters.
Shambari was killed Tuesday in a joint strike carried out in northern Gaza. According to the joint statement published on X, he had held the position for several years and was considered "a key figure involved in gathering intelligence on Israeli army forces."
The two agencies also stated that Shambari had played an active role in planning the October 7, 2023 attack — the Hamas-led massacre on Israeli territory that triggered the war in Gaza and killed some 1,200 people.
His elimination marks the latest in a systematic Israeli campaign to decapitate Hamas's military and intelligence leadership.
Over the course of the conflict, Israel has targeted and killed several senior Hamas commanders, including the group's political chief Ismail Haniyeh and its military leader Yahya Sinwar.
The strike comes amid an ongoing Israeli military offensive in Gaza and fragile ceasefire negotiations, with Hamas's command structure increasingly degraded but the group's capacity to resist far from eliminated.