IDF kills Bibas family kidnappers, hostage video producer in Gaza

The IDF and Shin Bet struck and eliminated Mohammed Hassan Mohammed Awad, a senior commander in the Military Intelligence Array in the Gaza Strip, the IDF announced on Friday.

He was affiliated with senior commanders of the Palestinian Mujahideen terrorist organization.

On October 7, Awad infiltrated the Israeli community of Nir Oz multiple times. He was one of the leaders of the massacre and was likely personally involved in the abductions and brutal murders of Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas.

The grandson of Hamas’s chief negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, in Qatar was killed in an airstrike before the January ceasefire, the Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV channel reported

The grandson was reportedly killed during a strike on the Dar al-Arqam school.

Half of the living hostages are in areas that the IDF has attempted to evacuate recently, Hamas's Al-Qassam Brigades spokesman said in a statement on Friday.

"We have decided not to move these captives from those areas and to keep them under strict security measures - but their lives are in extreme danger," he said.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir met with families of hostages on Friday, the IDF announced.

He emphasized during the meeting that the IDF's objective of the operation in Gaza is to bring the hostages home as their top priority.

The IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announced the elimination of Hamas terrorist Mahmad Salah Mohammad Bardawil on Friday.

Bardawil served as Hamas's propaganda and psychological warfare operative and was a central figure in its propaganda apparatus. He was killed during an operation this week.

He also took part in filming hostages for propaganda videos.

Jordanian citizens, some dressed as Hamas terrorists, gathered to protest against the war against Hamas on Friday in Amman, Reuters images revealed.

Some signs held at the protest read in Arabic, “Enough killing…Enough silence and inaction. The occupation continues its massacre with American support.”

Jordan has been the frequent site of protests and actions in solidarity with Hamas and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing war, which was started when the Iran-backed terror group invaded southern Israel on October 7, 2023. 

The Trump administration moved forward with the sale of more than 20,000 US-made assault rifles to Israel last month, according to a document seen by Reuters and a source familiar with the matter, pushing ahead with a sale that the administration of former president Joe Biden had delayed over concerns they could be used by extremist Israeli settlers.

The State Department sent a notification to Congress on March 6 for the $24 million sale, saying the end user would be the Israeli National Police, according to the document.

The rifle sale is a small transaction next to the billions of dollars worth of weapons that Washington supplies to Israel. But it drew attention when the Biden administration delayed the sale over concerns that the weapons could end up in the hands of Israeli settlers, some of whom have carried out attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.

Despite US President Donald Trump’s claim that recent strikes on Yemen had “decimated” the Houthis, government officials have reportedly quietly acknowledged in private that the attacks have been less effective than anticipated, the New York Times reported on Friday.

Pentagon officials reportedly acknowledged that the US was struggling to hit the Houthis’ underground arsenal. 

Despite limited success, the attacks have grown fiercer under the Trump administration, the NYT report detailed, with attacks reportedly stronger than what the US defense department is willing to admit.

Turkey wants no confrontation with Israel in Syria after repeated Israeli attacks on military sites there undermined the new government's ability to deter threats, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Reuters on Friday.

In an interview on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, Fidan said Israel's actions in Syria - where the administration of President Ahmed al-Sharaa is a close Turkish ally - were paving the way for future regional instability.

If the new administration in Damascus wants to have "certain understandings" with Israel, which, like Turkey, is a neighbor of Syria, then that is their own business, he added.

The Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court denied on Friday morning the request by Israel Police to extend the detentions of Yonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein, the two main suspects in the “Qatargate” case.