The IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) eliminated Hamas's chief of counterintelligence, Rashid Gachgoach, in an air strike, the military and the agency said in a joint announcement on Thursday.
Gachgoach was crucial to catching Palestinians cooperating with Israel, a key arena both for strategic and tactical conflicts between the sides.
As such, he was a key member of Hamas's intelligence and terror planning command structure.
The IDF also named multiple other-level senior Hamas officials who it assassinated on Thursday.
Other terrorist eliminated
Among those it named was Ismail Abd al-Aal, a central figure in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) Weapons Smuggling Unit who managed the terror group's smuggling operations.