Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli troops seized a senior Hamas official during a ground raid in Gaza on Wednesday, as Palestinian health authorities reported that four people had been killed in the operation.
In a statement, Mr Netanyahu identified the target as the leader of Hamas’s internal security apparatus in Gaza and said he had previously been involved in matters concerning Israeli hostages held in the territory. He offered no further details.
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Hamas’s Interior Ministry in Gaza and Israeli news outlets named the man as Muein al-Arabid.
The Israeli military and Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency said the official had “recently worked to consolidate the Hamas terrorist organization’s control over the northern Gaza Strip and to advance terrorist attacks against IDF troops”.
A Gaza security source said the Israeli operation also involved a militia allied with Israel inside the Strip. Israeli media identified the group as the Abu Shabab militia, described as the territory’s largest anti-Hamas paramilitary organisation.
Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Interior and National Security said Israel had “abducted Internal Security Service officer Muein Mohammed Al-Arabid after he was wounded while engaging the attacking Israeli force. His wife was killed and several of his children were injured.”
A security source in Gaza rejected claims that Mr Arabid had taken part in military activity against Israel or dealt with Israeli hostages. The source said his role was limited to “overseeing efforts to combat collaborators” working with Israel.
Hamas denounced what it called a “criminal operation”, saying it “held communications with the mediators and Nickolay Mladenov”, the high representative for Gaza under the US-backed “Board of Peace” responsible for carrying out an October ceasefire plan.
The Israeli air force carried out a parallel series of attacks, the military said, striking “several targets in the area in order to remove threats” to the troops involved in the capture operation.
Witnesses described roughly a dozen strikes on Wednesday morning in western Gaza City. The territory’s civil defence agency said the attacks killed three children and a woman.
Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City confirmed the death toll reported by the civil defence agency, which functions as a rescue service under Hamas.
Video recorded by AFP after the strikes showed the bodies of two children wrapped in shrouds and carried through the streets, alongside the twisted remains of a vehicle.
“A jeep stopped in the middle of the street and started firing indiscriminately left and right. It carried on firing at us like rain for more than 15 minutes,” Wafika al-Helou said , recalling what she described as a “terrifying and unbearable” scene.
Mutaz Abu Asr, another witness, reported heavy gunfire and drones, saying that more than five strikes took place in under three minutes.
Palestinians move from an area being targeted during an Israeli military strike in Gaza city
A destroyed car among the debris from a reported Israeli bombing
Hamas denounced what it called a “criminal operation”, saying it “held communications with the mediators and Nickolay Mladenov”, the high representative for Gaza under the US-backed “Board of Peace” responsible for carrying out an October ceasefire plan.
Elsewhere in central Gaza, Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah said Israeli fire had killed two more people, among them a girl. The civil defence agency confirmed the reported deaths.
Fighting has continued across the Gaza Strip despite the US-backed ceasefire, with Israeli forces maintaining strikes against Palestinians they say are militants.
Since the truce began, Israeli operations in Gaza have killed at least 1,326 people, according to the Palestinian territory’s health ministry. The ministry is administered under Hamas authority, but the United Nations considers its casualty figures reliable.
Over the same period, the Israeli military has reported five deaths among its personnel, along with the death of one civilian contractor.
Israel PM’s wife shares conspiracy theory about opposition figure
Sara Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister’s wife, has alleged that an opposition politician knew about Hamas’s plan for the 7 October 2023 attack before it took place.
The comments provoked anger among opposition figures and underscored Israel’s fierce political divisions as the country approaches closely contested elections on 27 October.
Speaking in a television interview broadcast on Tuesday evening, Sara Netanyahu criticised Yair Golan, a former deputy military chief of staff who now leads Israel’s centre-left Democrats party.
She implied that Mr Golan was “already dressed and ready” at dawn on 7 October 2023, “while others knew nothing, including the prime minister”.
The interview aired on Channel 14, an Israeli broadcaster viewed as sympathetic to the government, and prompted an immediate backlash from opposition parties.
Mr Golan’s party issued a strong condemnation of what it called the “vile and deceitful” comments.
“Spreading conspiracies against Major General Yair Golan, and smearing his heroism on 7 October, is crossing a red line that borders on insanity,” the party wrote on X.
Gadi Eisenkot, a former army chief and the leading contender to challenge Mr Netanyahu, condemned what he described as the “mad conspiracy of betrayal” promoted by the prime minister’s wife.
Writing on X, he said the remarks were “intended only to stoke hatred and perpetuate Netanyahu’s rule”.
Sara Netanyahu’s claims tap into recurring conspiracy theories held by part of Israel’s political establishment.
A Channel 13 poll conducted in August found that 40% of Israelis — including 63% of voters who support the current right-wing coalition — believe internal treason contributed to the 7 October attack, the deadliest day in Israel’s history.
Mr Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister and a leader who has portrayed himself as the country’s security guarantor, has rejected personal responsibility for the assault, arguing that security officials should have awakened him.
