Israel’s military and its domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet, announced they have killed Wael Musa Khaled al-Ladawi, the Hamas commander who led Internal Security forces across the central camps of the Gaza Strip. The targeted strike hit his vehicle in Deir al-Balah.
In a separate action, Israeli ground troops demolished a Hamas tunnel in northern Gaza as part of continued efforts to tear down the militant group’s military infrastructure.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Shin Bet stated that al-Ladawi commanded Hamas’s Internal Security apparatus in the central camps and ran an organization dedicated to collecting intelligence on behalf of the group’s senior leadership.
In a statement, the military said the security service under al-Ladawi’s command “collected intelligence for senior Hamas officials, supporting their decision-making and facilitating the planning and execution of terrorist attacks against the State of Israel.”
On the tunnel operation, the IDF reported that soldiers from the Northern Gaza Brigade and the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit, both operating under the 99th Division, carried out the demolition east of the area known as the “Yellow Line.”
The military described the tunnel as a component of Hamas’s broader underground network, saying its destruction was part of a wider push to break apart the group’s military infrastructure in northern Gaza. The IDF released video footage documenting the demolition, framing it as engineering work to clear the zone of terrorist infrastructure.
The IDF noted that Southern Command forces remain stationed in the area in line with the existing ceasefire framework, and that troops will continue to respond to any immediate threats that emerge.
Israeli officials characterized the killing of al-Ladawi as a significant blow to Hamas’s internal security structure, which they say played a central role in backing the organization’s leadership and enabling attacks against Israel.
