An Israeli drone strike on a vehicle in western Gaza City on Saturday killed Raed Saad, a senior Hamas commander and one of the group’s top military leaders.
The strike occurred near al-Nabulsi Square, west of Gaza City, according to local reports. Saad was a senior member of the Hamas military general staff and is considered the group’s second-in-command at present after military chief Izz ad-Din al-Haddad.
Israel targets Hamas second-in-command in Gaza drone strike
In a joint statement, the IDF and the Shin Bet security service said they had targeted “a key terrorist” in Hamas in Gaza City. The statement said the operative had recently been involved in efforts to rehabilitate and manufacture weapons for the organization.
According to military sources, there had been several opportunities in recent weeks to eliminate Saad, who has been leading Hamas’ military rebuilding efforts in northern Gaza since the ceasefire. However, it was only on Saturday that Israeli intelligence achieved a high-confidence identification of his location above ground, prompting the targeted drone strike.
Israeli defense officials are expected to justify the operation to American counterparts—who have expressed reservations about such actions—by framing it as a direct response to Hamas’ repeated violations of the ceasefire, particularly recent incidents involving suspects approaching the so-called “yellow line” — the boundary between Israeli-held and Hamas-controlled areas of Gaza.
Saad, born in 1972, was a senior member of Hamas’ military general staff and had long been sought by Israeli forces. He was widely described by analysts and local officials as the chief operational planner of Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and author of the so-called "Jericho Wall" document, a comprehensive strategy that deployed nearly all of the group’s estimated 40,000 fighters and capabilities, including infantry units, engineering teams, anti‑tank crews, air defenses, drones, paragliders and naval forces.
A veteran of Hamas’ so‑called “Generation 2005,” Saad came up through the ranks after early involvement in the First Intifada, lengthy detentions by Israeli and Palestinian authorities and battlefield experience in the Second Intifada. Members of that generation have been credited with transforming Hamas from a guerrilla organization into a structured military force focused on confronting Israel.
Israel had previously tried several times over the course of the war to kill Saad without success. In March 2024, the military mistakenly announced his capture during an operation at Sheba Hospital in Gaza before later correcting the report, saying he had not been detained.
First published: 15:32, 12.13.25