The Israeli military says it has killed Maher Walid Omar al-Husseini, a cell commander in Hamas's elite Nukhba force, in an airstrike in southern Gaza on Wednesday. The IDF announced the strike on Friday and says al-Husseini took part in the October 7, 2023 attack on the Re'im military base, home to the Gaza Division headquarters, where Hamas fighters killed 19 Israeli soldiers during hours of fighting. According to the military, he did not stop after the war began. The IDF claims he was recently advancing attacks against Israeli troops and civilians and trying to rebuild Hamas's capabilities, which it describes as a systematic violation of the ceasefire.

The IDF says it took steps to reduce harm to civilians before the strike, including the use of precision munitions and aerial surveillance, and that troops remain deployed in the area under the ceasefire agreement and will continue acting against any immediate threat. The announcement follows two other Gaza strikes on Thursday, which the military says killed another Hamas commander who took part in October 7 and a Palestinian Islamic Jihad member, and Israel has increasingly targeted October 7 participants in recent months. These details come from IDF statements, which are difficult to verify independently from inside Gaza, and the strikes raise a pressing question about how long a ceasefire can hold while both sides accuse each other of undermining it.