The Israeli army said on Sunday it had killed a Gaza resident alleged to have taken part in the abduction of Israelis into the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, and a Hamas commander who held hostages in the Gaza Strip during the war.
Saher Saqr was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Nuseirat in the central part of the coastal strip on Saturday, the al-Aqsa Hospital in the Gaza Strip also confirmed. Three other people were injured in the strike. Sources within the Palestinian militant organization Hamas also said Saqr had been involved in the hostage-taking nearly three years ago.
The Israeli army confirmed Palestinian reports that Saqr had ridden the motorbike on which Israeli woman Noa Argamani and her boyfriend Avinatan Or were abducted. He had most recently been involved in planning new attacks and was therefore killed “to eliminate the threat he posed,” the army said.
The fate of the young woman, who was abducted from the Nova music festival in Israel to the adjacent coastal territory, had prompted an outpouring of sympathy worldwide. Footage of her being taken away on a motorbike, desperately crying out for help, circulated widely on social media.
In June 2024, Argamani was freed from Hamas captivity by an Israeli special forces unit along with three other hostages. The army said the operation involved fierce clashes with armed Palestinians. According to the Hamas-controlled health authority, 274 Palestinians were killed. The figures made no distinction between fighters and civilians.
Last year, Argamani addressed the UN Security Council, describing the horrific conditions of her captivity.
In a separate strike in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the Israeli army said it had killed a Hamas commander who held hostages in the Gaza Strip.
The army and the domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet said in a joint statement that the commander had been involved in the captivity of nine hostages during the Gaza war, among them German-Israeli brothers Gali and Ziv Berman and German-Israeli Alon Ohel. The three were released as part of a ceasefire agreement in October last year.
A ceasefire in the Gaza war has technically been in place since October 2025, but deadly strikes continue to occur. Israel has recently stepped up its airstrikes, saying it has been targeting and killing senior members of Hamas.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas fighters and members of other extremist organizations killed around 1,200 people in Israel and abducted more than 250 others as hostages to Gaza. The unprecedented attack triggered the Gaza war. Since then, more than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-controlled health authority.