When Hamas commander Izz al-Din al-Haddad was killed by an Israeli air strike last month, former hostages Liri Albag and Emily Damari welcomed the news.
Simply, one of the last surviving senior members of the terrorist group’s military leaders that had planned the October 7 attack had been eliminated.
Albag held al-Haddad responsible for her kidnapping on October 7 from the Nahal Oz base, where she was an unarmed observer, and thanked Israeli security forces, saying Hamas terrorists should know that “retribution will come eventually.”
Damari described the strike as the “closing of a chapter”.
But the JC has learnt that while thousands of the October 7 assailants have been killed or captured, almost three years on, many more on the hit list remain alive and at liberty.
They are being pursued by a covert unit created by Israel in the hours after the attack in 2023.
It was formed amid the chaotic aftermath, when the web was awash with horrific evidence of the crimes committed that dark day, in footage filmed and distributed by the terrorists themselves.
The clandestine new outfit was charged with a forensic analysis of every available frame of footage and identifying every terrorist who crossed into Israel during the attack.
It was given the name NILI – an acronym of “Netzach Yisrael Lo Yeshaker” (“The Eternal One of Israel does not lie”).
The underlying message was stark.
No victim of the attack would be forgotten.
Every single participant in the massacre should know they would be pursued to the ends of the Earth until their dying day, up to the highest echelons of the terrorist masterminds.
Netanyahu vowed at the time: “Every Hamas member is a dead man.”
Targeted killings of those held responsible for terrorist attacks has for decades been a core component of Israel’s military and intelligence arsenal and feared reputation.
The legacy goes back more than half a century, to the operation that targeted the masterminds of the massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes at the Munich Games in 1972.
Among the earliest high-profile targets after the October 7th massacre was Saleh al-Arouri, Hamas’s most senior figure in Lebanon.
Hamas condemned the assassination as a “terrorist act,” while Hezbollah characterised it as an assault on Lebanon and warned that it would not go unanswered.
According to Lebanese media reports, al-Arouri was killed in a drone strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs on January 2, 2024, along with six other Hamas members, including two military commanders.
As Hamas’s deputy political chief, Al-Arouri was one of the movement’s most influential figures outside Gaza.
A founding commander of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, he was also a close confidant of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Based in Lebanon, he played a central role in coordinating relations between Hamas and Hezbollah, making him a key figure in the Iran-backed regional alliance opposed to Israel.
Six months later, Haniyeh was killed in Tehran.
He was staying at a guesthouse operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps when an explosive device concealed in his room and deployed with immense precision was detonated.
A senior military source told the JC that there are many methods of tracking down October 7th participants, explaining: “Facial recognition is one tool.
“We also use data, intelligence sources, and footage from that day. There are recordings, witness accounts, and other forms of evidence that help identify individuals who took part.”
In many cases, the participants themselves made identification easier, the source said. “Some were proud of what they had done. They called family members and spoke openly about killing Jews. They were not trying to hide their actions.
“In fact, many of them livestreamed what they were doing on social media, including attacks on elderly civilians. Because of that, it was not especially difficult to identify many of those involved.
“Today they are hiding and afraid of the Israeli military, but on October 7 many openly documented their own actions.”
“The process begins with intelligence gathering. The first step is simple: gather as much information as possible about the target – who they are, where they are located, who else may be nearby, and what sensitive locations or civilians could be affected. Each case also involves an assessment the reliability of the intelligence provided and the degree of confidence given to the identification of a target.
“From there, planners determine the appropriate method of action. That might include selecting the particular munition or aircraft to be used.
“In some cases, the decision might be made that ground forces will carry out the mission.
“Specialists assess the likely effects of different weapons and calculate what level of force would be required to achieve the intended objective.”
The next step is determining the right timing. Factors can include weather conditions, operational considerations, and sometimes political or diplomatic circumstances.
The operation must then go through an approval process. The level of approval required depends on the nature and significance of the target says the source.
In some cases, authorisation may come from a senior military commander; in others, it may require approval at the highest political levels, up to and including the prime minister.
The source explains: “Sometimes there is immense pressure to act quickly, but in many cases the intelligence picture has been building for weeks or months.
“By the time a target presents itself, much of the assessment work has already been completed and is simply waiting for a final decision.”
In the normal course of events, intelligence analysis, legal reviews and operational planning will already be in place ahead of an operation being carried out.
However, that may not be the case in exceptional circumstances, according to the source: “Of course, those assessments have to be updated on the day of the strike, but the groundwork is often done well in advance.
“In cases where urgent intelligence arrives and action is required within hours or even minutes, there are direct channels to the political leadership. If the Chief of Staff calls the Prime Minister and says a matter is urgent, there is an understanding of why that access is needed.”
What about the risk of civilians being killed in an operation that is targeting a terrorist militant?
Israel has been criticised for the deaths of non-combatants caught up in the war in Gaza: this is one of the main allegations examined by the International Criminal Court, which issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant in November 2024.
The senior military source says such criticism overlooks the wider context of the very nature of the conflict against Hamas and the tactics the terrorist group uses.
“On the issue of civilian casualties, there is a fundamental reality that has to be acknowledged. If a military force embeds itself within civilian areas, builds extensive tunnel networks beneath densely populated neighbourhoods and operates from residential buildings, then the risk of collateral damage increases dramatically.
“That is an unfortunate consequence of fighting a terrorist organisation that uses civilian infrastructure and, in our view, uses civilians as human shields.”
But the source adds Israel will still do all it can to prevent civilian casualties and minimise their likelihood, in accord with international law.
“I cannot emphasise enough that the IDF takes extensive measures to minimise civilian harm. I know the effort that goes into reducing collateral damage wherever possible. If civilians can be kept out of harm’s way, that is always the objective.
“That is why civilians are warned and evacuated from areas of active combat, often before strikes take place.
“In many cases, we notify people that operations are about to occur, even though doing so removes the element of surprise and can complicate the mission. The priority is to ensure civilians are not caught in the fighting.”
The commitment extends to giving munitions specialists specific responsibility for choosing which weapon can best achieve the objective while limiting unnecessary damage.
The high-precision capabilities are such that an operation can target a specific floor of a building or even one room while leaving other parts of a building undamaged. In some cases, successful strikes have been conducted with such accuracy that children in one part of an apartment survived unharmed after an attack killed a target in another room.
The sources explains every operation is subject to the decision of military legal advisers who examine the proposed plan, the intelligence supporting it, and the intended method of killing before deciding whether or not to give approval.
The final stage of the operation is the battle-damage assessment, or BDA in the jargon of military acronyms, the source adds.
Intelligence teams review surveillance footage and any other available data to determine whether the mission achieved its objective and to assess the results.
Yet there is a limit to what any single operation can achieve, warns Guy Chen, a former Shin Bet officer who once questioned now slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. He believes there is only so much Israel can do to remove the threat that surrounds it so long the ideology to wipe it off the map exists.
Chen recalls: “A commander once told me after an operation in which we dismantled a Hamas cell: ‘We’re killing mosquitoes, but we’re not draining the swamp.’ That stayed with me.”
“Eliminating individual terrorists is important, but unless you dismantle the networks, resources and support systems that sustain them, the threat will return.”
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