Israel acquires a new advanced weapon to “destroy Hamas”. Child of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, and Shin Bet, the anti-terrorist service, a new military commando is responsible for eliminating members of the Nakba, the special military unit of Hamas which had introduced itself along the the border and massacred more than 1,400 Israelis on October 7.
This one is nicknamed “Nili”, a name taken from an acronym in Hebrew which translates as “The eternity of Israel will not lie”, in reference to a passage from the Bible. According to Jerusalem Post, it is also the name of the Jewish clandestine organization that operated during the First World War during the Ottoman occupation of the region. It should operate independently of other IDF (Israeli Army) units, which focus on neutralizing airstriking cells and high-ranking Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip. according to i24News.
Two Nakba commanders in the viewfinder
Several important players in Hamas’ military wing have already been eliminated in the intense bombardments carried out by Israel on the Gaza Strip over the past 18 days. Last Sunday, senior rocket network official Muhammad Katmash was killed, according to local media and the Israeli military. Last Wednesday, the IDF also claimed to have eliminated more than 10 members of the Nakba. Among them were two commanders: Billal al-Qedra, who led the Khan Younis battalion, and Ali Qadhi, a company commander.
In the coming weeks, the Nili Unit is expected to have two main targets: the masterminds of the October 7 attacks, military commander Muhammad Deif, and political leader Yahya Sinwar, who had already spent 23 years in Israeli prisons before being released in 2011 in a hostage exchange. For the moment, these two senior leaders remain untraceable and are said to have managed to escape using the “metro”, a particularly developed tunnel network under the Gaza Strip. The leader Muhammad Deif, who survived six assassination attempts in recent years, is even a master in the art of hiding and escaping death: nicknamed the “cat with seven lives”, he does not exist of him only one photograph. By eliminating them, Israel hopes to considerably weaken the terrorist organization.
The resumption of assassinations abroad?
It is not impossible that other members of Hamas, commanders who travel in particular between the West Bank, Lebanon and Turkey, could be the subject of targeted eliminations abroad. “Every member of Hamas is a dead man,” promised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a few days after the attacks.
From 1972 to 1991, the “Wrath of God” operation initiated by then Prime Minister Golda Meir triggered the assassination by the Mossad in France, Italy and Lebanon of a dozen members of the terrorist group. Palestinian Black September, responsible for the death of 11 Hebrew athletes at the Munich Olympic Games, but also of members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) who had organized the operation. Like “Nili”, a special commando named “Kidon” (Bayonet in Hebrew) was then created to lead this hunt which lasted almost 20 years.