According to Israeli media, the Mossad and Shin Bet intelligence agencies have formed a new operations division to track down members of the Hamas commando unit that led the terrorists’ surprise raid on Israel earlier this month.
Nili, named after a Jewish spy ring that aided the British against the Ottomans in Palestine during World War I, will track down and kill every member of Hamas’ elite Nukbha force involved in the deadly raid that killed 1,400 Israelis and captured another 210 hostages. The name of the group translates to “the Eternal One of Israel will not lie” in Hebrew.
At least two Nukbha commanders have already been killed in airstrikes, according to the Israel Defense Forces: the group’s Khan Younis battalion commander Billal al-Qedra and company commander Ali Qadhi. Another ten members of the unit were allegedly killed on Wednesday.
Hamas military commander Muhammad Deif and political leader Yahya Sinwar are thought to be hiding out in a network of reinforced tunnels beneath Gaza.
The IDF responded to the Hamas onslaught by striking Gaza with unprecedented ferocity, levelling entire neighbourhoods and murdering around 4,300 Palestinians as of Sunday.
International organisations, including the United Nations, have expressed concern about West Jerusalem’s retaliation, accusing Netanyahu’s government of violating international humanitarian and criminal law by depriving the civilian population of water, food, fuel, medicine, and other critical supplies.
Even Israel’s allies in the United States, who have committed billions of dollars in military aid and dispatched carrier groups, missile batteries, and thousands of troops to the region to threaten its rivals, have advised it to be cautious. A planned Israeli ground invasion of Gaza has been postponed to allow for the delivery of much-needed humanitarian goods to Gaza in the goal of freeing more hostages.
On Friday, the Red Cross released two of the hostages, an American mother and daughter from Chicago who were visiting a kibbutz in Israel when they were kidnapped. On Saturday, Hamas named two more people it was willing to release in the same way, an offer Netanyahu’s administration dismissed as “false Hamas propaganda” directed at Israel.
