People gather on the deck of a painted boat bearing artwork and flying multiple flags as it departs as part of a humanitarian flotilla for Gaza from Barcelona, Spain, April 12, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Nacho Doce

Israel’s latest strikes in Gaza targeted men whom Israeli security agencies linked to attacks nearly two decades apart. The first target was Ismail Ibrahim Darwish Kandil, whom the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

The second was Farah Hamed, whom authorities implicated in deadly West Bank shootings during the early 2000s. Together, their reported activities suggest that Israel’s pursuit of past attackers also serves its effort to disrupt Hamas’s current operations.

On Sept. 10, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that it had killed Kandil three days earlier in a strike near Khan Younis in southern Gaza. The military identified him as a member of Hamas’s elite Nukhba force that crossed into Israel on Oct. 7 and helped kill Nachal Brigade commander Col. Yonatan Steinberg. It also accused Kandil of preparing new attacks against Israeli troops and civilians and rebuilding Hamas’s military capabilities in violation of the ceasefire.

Hamed’s history reaches further back. The IDF, Shin Bet intelligence agency, and Israel Police announced that their joint operation killed him in a strike in the central Gaza Strip on Sept. 9. The agencies described him as a Hamas military operative who had held a senior position in the group’s West Bank headquarters and fought Israeli troops during the war.

Israeli authorities linked Hamed to the Silwad cell, which carried out shootings that killed Israeli civilians in the central West Bank. They also attributed to him a role in the October 2003 Ein Yabrud attack that killed three Israeli soldiers: Sgt. Elad Pollak, Sgt. Roi Yaakov Solomon, and Staff Sgt. Erez Idan.

Israel subsequently detained Hamed and released him to Gaza in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange. According to the security agencies, he then recruited and directed Hamas operatives planning attacks in the West Bank.

Hamas acknowledged Hamed’s death and credited his Silwad cell with nine attacks that killed six Israelis, identifying him as a member of its military council for the West Bank and saying he continued leading its fighters after his release.

These strikes matter because they link past attacks to future threats. According to Israeli security agencies, Hamed directed new plots after his release from prison, while Kandil worked to rebuild Hamas’s capabilities after participating in the Oct. 7 attack. Their cases suggest that Israel’s pursuit of those responsible for earlier bloodshed also serves an immediate objective: preventing experienced terrorists from organizing the next attack.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.