In the wake of the harrowing events on October 7, 2023, when Hamas orchestrated a brutal massacre, Israel swiftly formed a covert elite intelligence task force. This specialized unit was charged with the mission to either capture or eliminate every terrorist involved in the attack. Their targets range from high-ranking commanders who devised the assault down to the individual gunmen who breached southern Israel, marking it as the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
This task force, known by the Hebrew acronym NILI—meaning “The Eternal One of Israel Does Not Lie”—was established by Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service alongside military intelligence shortly after the attack. The assault led by Hamas resulted in the tragic loss of approximately 1,200 lives and the capture of 251 Israelis, most of whom were civilians.
Reports emerging soon after the massacre suggested that Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, was also involved in the operation, indicating the likelihood of the mission extending beyond the borders of Gaza to target Hamas operatives and leaders located overseas.
The task force has meticulously compiled a database with thousands of names. This list includes the elite Hamas Nukhba commandos who were at the forefront of the October 7 infiltration, along with other Palestinians identified as participants in the massacre. Israeli officials have emphasized that targets are only approved after investigators secure at least two independent pieces of evidence linking them to the scene of the attack or the assault itself.
To identify suspects, Israeli intelligence personnel have employed an extensive array of surveillance and intelligence-gathering tools. This includes utilizing facial recognition software to analyze videos uploaded by the terrorists, intercepting communications, tracking cellphone locations, examining social media footage, and conducting interrogations of Gazan detainees captured during the ongoing conflict.
The campaign reportedly extended far beyond senior Hamas leadership, with Israeli officials insisting that “no participant is deemed too insignificant” to escape accountability. One example cited in the report involved a Palestinian who was filmed driving a tractor through the Gaza border fence during the initial October 7 onslaught and was later killed in an Israeli strike nearly two years afterward while walking through Gaza.
Other targets included senior Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives tied directly to atrocities committed during the massacre. Among them was Ali Sami Muhammad Shakra, a Hamas Nukhba Force platoon commander accused of participating in the kidnapping of American-Israeli hostages Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alon Ohel, Eliya Cohen, and Or Levy near the Nova music festival massacre site.
The report also pointed to the April killing of Abd al-Rahman Ammar Hassan Khudari, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist accused of participating in the massacre at Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Home of the Bibas family, Argentine-Israelis who were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. Kibbutz Nir Oz, Israel, February 8, 2024 (Joel Pollak / – News)
One of the most significant recent eliminations came last week with the killing of Hamas Gaza chief Izz al-Din al-Haddad, whom IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir described as “one of the chief perpetrators of the October 7 massacre and the head of Hamas’s military wing.”
According to Israeli officials, Haddad helped direct the planning and execution of the October 7 attack, managed combat operations against Israeli forces throughout the war, and played a central role in Hamas’s hostage captivity system. Israeli officials further accused Haddad of attempting to rebuild Hamas’s military infrastructure during the ongoing ceasefire.
“Today, we succeeded in eliminating him,” Zamir declared following the strike. “The IDF will continue to pursue our enemies, strike them, and settle accounts with everyone who took part in the October 7 massacre.”
The Wall Street Journal report said the campaign has continued despite the ceasefire in Gaza, though at a reduced operational pace, with a smaller group of NILI operatives continuing to pass intelligence on targets to Israeli commanders overseeing military operations.
Inside Israel, the operation has drawn repeated comparisons to the country’s years-long campaign following the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, when Israeli intelligence hunted down Palestinian terrorists involved in the murder of 11 Israeli athletes.
“It will take time, just as it did after Munich,” Mossad Director David Barnea said in 2024. “But our hands will reach them, wherever they are.”
The broader campaign has also reportedly extended beyond Gaza, including operations linked to the killings of senior Hamas officials Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut and Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, alongside the eliminations inside Gaza of Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, Marwan Issa, and other senior Hamas commanders widely identified by Israel as key architects of the October 7 massacre.
Shalom Ben Hanan, a former senior Shin Bet official, told the newspaper the operation was intended to send a broader deterrent message throughout the region.
“The clear message to all future enemies is to think again about the price of a terrorist operation like that,” he said.
Michael Milstein, a former senior Israeli military intelligence officer specializing in Palestinian affairs, similarly argued the campaign reflected broader regional realities.
“In the Middle East, revenge is an important part of the discourse,” Milstein told the newspaper. “It is about how serious anyone in your environment sees you. Unfortunately, this is the language of this neighborhood.”
Joshua Klein is a reporter for – News. Email him at jklein@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.