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IDF eliminates Hamas, Fatah commanders on most-wanted list in Samaria

The two senior terrorists had been on Israel’s “most wanted list” for months.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The IDF eliminated Tuesday two senior terrorists in Tulkarem in the Palestinian Authority (PA), in a UAV airstrike that killed a group of five armed fighters.

One was the commander of Hamas’ military in the city, Ashraf Nafeh. According to Palestinian reports, there were at least two other top commanders in the group, including Muhammad Abu Abdo, the region’s head of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah’s military arm.

Fatah is the main Palestinian faction that runs the PA, and has boasted many times of its forces’ attacks against Israeli targets in a bid to show that it is just as anti-Israel as its Hamas rival for power in Judea and Samaria.

In Tulkarem, at least, the rivals were working together in the military sphere.

The reports stated that the two were among the top terror leaders in the city and have been on the Shabak’s “most wanted” list for months.

They were allegedly responsible for organizing squads that carried out a series of shooting attacks along the seam line of Judea and Samaria, and attempting to establish a military infrastructure like that in the terror hotspot of Jenin.

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In a video making the rounds on social media taken ostensibly right before the airstrike, Abu Abdo can be seen leading the group along an empty street of wrecked buildings while talking on a phone. One of them is a woman, dressed as a medic and carrying a machine gun just like the others.

They stop suddenly and move back few steps before the clip ends.

Palestinian media claimed that two women were killed in the attack.

According to military sources cited by The Times of Israel, the army “used a ruse to bring the senior commanders to an area where they could be targeted.”

IDF forces had entered the Palestinian city last night as part of its constant anti-terror operations in Judea and Samaria throughout the last two years but especially since October 7.

Just two days ago, after receiving a situational assessment of the military’s anti-terror operations in the region, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that the IDF would continue to act to eliminate the danger to Israel’s heartland just as it does elsewhere.

“Yesterday we operated 2,000 kilometers from the State of Israel [in attacking the Houthis in Yemen], and now we are in the heart of the State of Israel — here too we will know how to act,” he said.

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“I instructed the Central Command, the IDF and the chief of staff to ensure that all the actions of terror battalions inside refugee camps are thwarted, and we are crushing these battalions — in Jenin, Tulkarem, Tubas and elsewhere,” the defense minister added.