Ihab Jamil Abu Taqiya, USA News: A Hamas commander who held an 8-year-old Irish-Israeli girl hostage, among more than a dozen others, has been killed in an IDF (Israeli Defence Force) airstrike. Ihab Jamil Abu Taqiya, who was a squad commander in the military wing of the group, was declared eliminated by Israeli security forces.
Abu Taqiya had been involved in holding numerous hostages since the October 7 massacre, including Emily Hand, Raya Rotem, Hila Rotem Shoshani, Ohad Ben Ami, Noa Argamani, Andrey Kozlov, Shlomi Ziv, Almog Meir Jan, Maxim Herkin, Yosef Haim Ohana, Segev Kalfon, and Alexander Lobanov. Emily, who is now 11, was among the 200 people kidnapped during the 2023 attack that saw 1,200 murdered by Hamas militants. The girl was held captive by Abu Taqiya for 50 days, celebrating her ninth birthday while in the hands of Hamas. Emily was emotionally reunited with her family on November 26 alongside 13 Israelis released by the terror group. Reflecting on the harrowing ordeal three years on, Emily admitted she still experiences the odd flash of fear.
Airstrikes and Casualties in Nuseirat
Her former captor was slain alongside six other Hamas fighters in strikes on the Nuseirat area on Thursday, the IDF said. Three of the six militants killed across multiple strikes this week were identified as commanders. Ibrahim Gihad Muhammad Abu Oshaiba, a platoon commander in Hamas’s armed wing, was also killed in the same airstrike that eliminated Abu Taqiya. The IDF stated that both men had been actively pursuing attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians throughout the conflict, with a particular escalation in recent weeks. Security forces said the strike was conducted specifically to neutralise the threat the two militants posed, and precautions were taken beforehand to limit civilian harm.
Security forces described the activities of the pair as systematic breaches of the ceasefire agreement, accusing them of working to rebuild Hamas’s military capacity. In a separate operation on Thursday night, Israeli forces struck two weapons storage sites used by Hamas’s armed wing, one in the Al-Bureij area and another in Gaza City. The facilities housed a substantial arsenal including RPG launchers, explosive devices, rockets, Kalashnikov assault rifles, grenades and ammunition magazines, the military said. Ahead of those strikes, the IDF said it had issued warnings to nearby civilians and employed precision munitions alongside aerial surveillance to minimise the risk of non-combatant casualties.
Additional Strikes and Operations
Four additional Hamas fighters were killed in two separate strikes carried out in the southern Gaza Strip. In the Khan Younis area, the military said it had killed Muhammad Alian Biyuk, whom it identified as a member of Hamas’s elite Nukhba unit. A further strike near Rafah killed three more militants, commander Al-Hamam Jaber Al-Sayed Abu Labda, Mahmoud Abu Naama and Muhammad Hamad Shreiki Sultan. The IDF said all four had been working to restore Hamas’s operational capabilities and advance attacks against Israeli forces and civilians, in breach of the ceasefire. The Israeli military added that it again used precision weaponry and aerial surveillance to reduce civilian risk. IDF troops under Southern Command remain deployed in Gaza in line with the ceasefire agreement and will continue to act against immediate threats, the military said.
