Israel Kills Hamas Operative Linked to Abduction of American-Israeli Hostage

On June 1, 2026, an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza killed Yousef Ayesh Awad Ramadan, a deputy commander of a Hamas Nukhba Force cell who had stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and helped drag four young people from a roadside bomb shelter into captivity in Gaza [1][2]. Among his victims was Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old American-Israeli who lost his hand in the attack and was murdered by Hamas eleven months later [3].

The strike marked the latest in a methodical, years-long Israeli campaign to track down and kill or capture every individual who participated in the October 7 massacre. But with the hostage crisis now formally concluded — the last remains were recovered in January 2026 [4] — the operation raises pointed questions about its legal basis, its strategic value, and what accountability looks like when the people being hunted no longer hold bargaining chips.

The Strike: What Happened

The Israel Defense Forces announced on June 2 that Southern Command forces had carried out a precision strike the previous day that killed Ramadan in the central Gaza Strip [1][5]. The IDF described Ramadan as a senior operative who had continued to pose an active threat, stating that "in recent weeks, the terrorist advanced attack plans against IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians" [2].

The military said it took steps to minimize civilian harm. "Prior to the strike, steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians, including the use of precise munitions and aerial surveillance," the IDF stated [5]. The military did not disclose whether any civilians were killed or injured in the strike, and Palestinian health authorities had not issued specific casualty figures for the incident at the time of reporting.

The Shelter of Death

The bomb shelter at Re'im Junction became one of the most horrific scenes of October 7. About 50 young people fleeing the Nova music festival piled into the small fortified structure seeking cover from Hamas gunfire [6][7]. Nukhba commandos — Hamas's elite infiltration force — threw grenades inside, killing many of those sheltering there. The blast severed Goldberg-Polin's left hand [3].

Ramadan's cell then pulled four survivors from the shelter: Goldberg-Polin, Eliya Cohen (then 26), Alon Ohel (then 24), and Or Levy (then 34). Footage later released at the families' request showed the bloodied hostages being forced onto a pickup truck and driven into Gaza [7][8].

Their fates diverged. Goldberg-Polin survived nearly 11 months in Hamas tunnels before he was killed in captivity in August 2024. His body was recovered by the IDF [3]. Cohen, Ohel, and Levy endured captivity ranging from 491 to over 730 days before being released through negotiated deals in 2025 [8][9].

A Former Hostage Responds

Alon Ohel, who spent more than two years as a Hamas captive — enduring starvation, chains, and sexual abuse, according to his own testimony [10] — reacted to Ramadan's killing with an Instagram post thanking the IDF and urging the military to continue "until the last terrorist" [9][11].

Ohel's response underscored the deeply personal dimension of Israel's targeting campaign for survivors. During interviews after his release, Ohel described being kept chained, subjected to surgery without anesthesia, and starved to the point where his father said he "looked like skin and bones" [10].

The Goldberg-Polin family, who became among the most prominent advocates for a hostage deal before Hersh's death — speaking at the Democratic National Convention in 2024 and meeting with world leaders — had not issued a public statement about Ramadan's killing at the time of reporting [12]. After Hersh's death, his parents had warned that remaining hostages would not "make it much longer" without a deal, and pushed relentlessly for negotiations [13].

The NILI Campaign: Scope and Methods

The strike against Ramadan is one operation within a far larger effort. Israel has established a secretive task force known as NILI — an acronym for "Netzach Yisrael Lo Yeshaker" ("The Eternal One of Israel does not lie") — dedicated to identifying and eliminating every participant in the October 7 attacks [14][15].

The task force maintains a list of "thousands of names" of attackers, compiled using captured Hamas footage, facial recognition technology, intercepted communications, and location data [14][16]. Shin Bet intelligence officers, IDF personnel, and air force operators work together in a war room, tracking the movements of militants' associates to locate targets in hiding [14].

Hundreds of October 7 participants have already been killed, according to reports, though Israel has not published a comprehensive tally [14][15]. The campaign encompasses both senior leadership and lower-level operatives, with no announced end date.

Source: Washington Post / Times of Israel

Data as of Jun 2, 2026CSV

The pace of senior-level killings has accelerated in 2026. In May alone, Israel killed Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the head of Hamas's military wing, and then struck his replacement, Mohammed Odeh, just 11 days later [17][18]. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz called Odeh "one of the architects" of October 7 [18].

The Hostage Crisis: Resolved, But at What Cost

The hostage crisis that began on October 7, 2023 — when Hamas-led militants seized 251 people — was formally resolved in January 2026 with the recovery of the remains of Master Sergeant Ran Gvili, the last unaccounted-for captive [4].

Source: Times of Israel / AJC

Data as of Jun 2, 2026CSV

Of the 251 people captured, 105 were released during a brief ceasefire in November 2023. Eight more were rescued or their remains recovered during 2024. A further 114 were freed through ceasefire deals negotiated in 2025, and the final 20 sets of remains were recovered in January 2026 [4][19]. Dozens of hostages died in captivity, including Goldberg-Polin and five others found dead in a tunnel in August 2024.

With no living hostages remaining in Gaza, the calculus around targeted killings has shifted. During the hostage crisis, critics argued that strikes risked harming captives or eliminating individuals who could serve as intelligence assets or negotiation counterparts. With that constraint removed, Israel has intensified its campaign.

Legal Questions: What International Law Permits

Israel's targeting campaign operates in a contested legal space. A detailed analysis published by Just Security examined the NILI program against the law of armed conflict (LOAC) and identified several constraints [20].

The central issue is whether individuals who participated in the October 7 attacks remain lawful military targets years later. Under LOAC, members of an organized armed group can be targeted based on their membership — but only if they remain members at the time of the strike. A fighter who has left Hamas cannot be legally targeted on the basis of past conduct alone [20].

For individuals who are not formal members of an organized armed group — such as Gazan civilians who participated in the October 7 looting or attacks — the standard is "direct participation in hostilities." This standard applies only while the person is actively participating, creating a narrower window for legal targeting [20].

The IDF's public justification for Ramadan's killing leaned on the present-tense threat: that he was actively advancing attack plans against soldiers and civilians [2]. This framing matters legally, because without an ongoing threat or continued membership in an armed group, the strike could constitute an extrajudicial execution under international law.

Israel's parliament has also moved on a parallel track, passing the Death Penalty for Terrorists Law on March 30, 2026, which mandates capital punishment for terrorism-related offenses and applies exclusively to Palestinians. UN experts have warned that mandatory death sentences violate international law [21].

The U.S. government has not formally endorsed or distanced itself from the specific strike against Ramadan. The Trump administration has broadly supported Israeli military operations against Hamas while pressing for implementation of the ceasefire agreement. At the World Economic Forum in January 2026, President Trump stated that Hamas must disarm and release all remaining hostage remains "within weeks" or be "blown away very quickly" [22].

Strategic Debate: Do Targeted Killings Work?

Experts are divided on whether Israel's systematic elimination of Hamas operatives advances its strategic objectives.

Proponents argue the campaign serves both justice and deterrence. IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir stated: "The IDF will continue to pursue our enemies, strike them and hold accountable everyone who took part in the October 7th massacre" [16]. Defense Minister Katz similarly pledged: "We pledged to eliminate everyone who led the October 7 massacre, and that is what we will do" [16].

Critics counter that targeted killings of individual operatives — even senior ones — do not meaningfully degrade organizations like Hamas. As the Washington Post reported after the May 2026 killings of al-Haddad and Odeh, "the killing of senior commanders is unlikely, on its own, to push Hamas toward disarmament or make it accept the complete removal of its role in Gaza's security and governance" [18]. Analysts quoted by the Boston Globe noted that while targeted killings provide "tangible achievements that leaders can brand as victories, they rarely address the underlying grievances that propel conflicts" [23].

The Times of Israel reported that experts assessed that "targeted killings haven't improved Israel's strategic regional position" when viewed in aggregate [24].

Historical Parallels: How Other Governments Have Handled This

Israel's campaign has precedents, but also key differences.

The United States pursued a similar accountability-driven approach after the September 11 attacks, culminating in the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan — nearly a decade after the attack. The U.S. also killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019; that operation was named after Kayla Mueller, an American aid worker who had been held captive, tortured, and repeatedly raped by al-Baghdadi before her death in ISIS custody in 2015 [25][26].

But in the ISIS hostage cases, the U.S. faced the same tension Israel confronted during the Gaza hostage crisis. American hostages James Foley and Steven Sotloff were killed by ISIS before rescue operations could succeed, raising questions about whether military action against the group's leadership helped or endangered captives. The Mueller case is instructive: the operation to kill al-Baghdadi was explicitly framed as accountability for his treatment of Mueller, but it came years after her death — much as the Ramadan strike came nearly two years after Goldberg-Polin's murder [26].

The key distinction is timing. During the active hostage crisis, Israel faced intense pressure — from families, from international partners, from its own military and intelligence establishment — to balance targeted killings with the safety of captives. Former intelligence officials and hostage negotiators have generally argued that killing operatives who hold hostages risks provoking retaliatory executions of captives, while also eliminating individuals who might serve as negotiation interlocutors or intelligence sources.

Now that the hostage crisis is resolved, that constraint has lifted, but a different question has taken its place: whether a campaign of indefinite targeted killings against thousands of identified individuals can be sustained legally, operationally, and diplomatically.

The Ceasefire Under Strain

The October 2025 ceasefire between Israel and Hamas remains fragile. Israeli military operations have continued in Gaza, and according to the Washington Post, more than 880 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire took effect [18]. The ongoing strikes, including the Ramadan killing, have complicated negotiations over the broader Gaza peace plan, which envisions Hamas disarmament and a restructured governance framework for the territory.

Netanyahu has framed the continued operations as consistent with Israel's security requirements, while Hamas and its supporters have characterized them as violations of the ceasefire's spirit. The tension between pursuing October 7 accountability and preserving diplomatic progress remains unresolved.

What Comes Next

Israel's NILI campaign shows no signs of slowing. The task force continues to work through its list of thousands of names, and recent weeks have seen an acceleration in high-profile strikes. For survivors like Alon Ohel and the families of those who did not come home — like Hersh Goldberg-Polin's parents, Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin — each elimination carries a weight that statistics cannot capture.

The legal, strategic, and moral questions surrounding Israel's targeted killing program are not new. But the scale and duration of the NILI campaign — now stretching past two and a half years with no defined endpoint — push those questions into territory that international law and military doctrine have not fully addressed. Whether the campaign ultimately delivers the accountability Israel seeks, or deepens the cycle of violence it aims to end, may not be answerable for years to come.