Israeli security forces carried out a targeted overnight airstrike between Friday and Saturday in Gaza City, aimed at eliminating senior terrorist Ali al-Amoudi, the designated successor to Yahya Sinwar and deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau in the Gaza Strip. The strike was executed while al-Amoudi was operating out of an apartment used for terror activities embedded within a multi-story residential building.
In a joint statement, the IDF and the Shin Bet (ISA) emphasized: “This is further evidence of the Hamas terror organization deliberately embedding itself within the civilian population, cynical abuse of non-combatants as human shields, and the exploitation of civilian infrastructure to direct terror operations. The terrorist al-Amoudi served as Yahya Sinwar’s right-hand man and personal aide, and was directly involved in top-level decision-making for the October 7 massacre.”
Al-Amoudi holds a long and lethal history of anti-Israel terrorism. He was directly involved in the murder of four Israelis in Judea and Samaria in 1993, as well as the 1994 operational attack in Ramallah that claimed the life of Shin Bet coordinator Noam-Menachem Cohen R.I.P. He was released from Israeli prison alongside Yahya Sinwar in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange and remained one of Sinwar’s closest operational confidants until the Hamas chief was eliminated in 2024.
Following Sinwar’s death, al-Amoudi rose to become the single most senior Hamas leadership figure remaining on the ground in the Gaza Strip, playing a direct command role in coordinating active terror cells and attempting to rehabilitate Hamas’s military infrastructure for ongoing warfare against Israel. The targeted airstrike was conducted to eliminate an immediate operational threat. Defense officials confirmed that precision munitions and specialized aerial tactics were used to mitigate collateral damage and protect non-combatants as much as possible. The IDF and Shin Bet are conducting technical assessments to confirm the strike’s operational results.