The IDF and Shin Bet announced that the commander of Hamas’s Nuseirat battalion, Ismail Siraj, and his deputy, Ahmed Wahaba, were killed in an airstrike this evening in the Gaza Strip, Paralel.Az reports citing The Times of Israel.

Siraj previously served as a commander of a Hamas Nukhba force company and was also involved in manufacturing rockets, according to the joint statement.

Wahaba, his deputy, was appointed to the role after the previous Nuseirat battalion deputy commander was killed by the IDF in the first weeks of the war.

The Nuseirat battalion, in the central Gaza Strip, carried out the massacre in Kibbutz Be’eri and other border communities on October 7.

The IDF says the battalion has also been involved in firing anti-tank missiles and drones at troops operating in Gaza in recent months.