Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces captured a senior Hamas figure on Tuesday (September 1, 2026) during a ground operation in Gaza that Palestinian health officials said killed four people.
The premier said in a statement that the target was the head of Hamas’s internal security apparatus in Gaza, and that he had been involved with Israeli hostages previously held there, without giving more details.
Hamas’s Interior Ministry in Gaza and Israeli media identified the man as Muein al-Arabid.
The army and Shin Bet domestic security service said in a joint statement that the target had “recently worked to consolidate the Hamas terrorist organization’s control over the northern Gaza Strip and to advance terrorist attacks against IDF troops”.
They added that he had been transferred to Israel for further questioning.
The forces included an Israeli-allied militia inside the Strip, a Gaza security source told AFP, with Israeli media identifying the group as the Abu Shabab militia, the largest anti-Hamas paramilitary in the Strip.
The Hamas-controlled Ministry of Interior and National Security said in a statement that Israel “abducted Internal Security Service officer Muein Mohammed Al-Arabid after he was wounded while engaging the attacking Israeli force. His wife was killed and several of his children were injured.”
A security source in Gaza speaking to AFP denied that Arabid had been involved in military operations against Israel or with Israeli hostages, saying that his work consisted of “overseeing efforts to combat collaborators” with Israel.
In a statement, Hamas condemned the “criminal operation” and said it “held communications with the mediators and Nickolay Mladenov”, the high representative for Gaza under the US-backed “Board of Peace” tasked with implementing an October ceasefire plan.
In tandem with the ground operation to capture Arabid, the Israeli air force “struck several targets in the area in order to remove threats” to its forces, the army statement said.
Eyewitnesses reported around a dozen strikes on Tuesday morning in western Gaza City, where the territory’s civil defence agency said three children and a woman were killed.
Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital confirmed the toll given by the civil defence, which operates as a rescue force under Hamas.
‘Firing at us like rain’
AFP footage from the aftermath of the strikes showed the bodies of two children wrapped in shrouds being carried through the streets, where the mangled wreckage of a vehicle lay.
“A jeep stopped in the middle of the street and started firing indiscriminately left and right. It carried on firing at us like rain for more than 15 minutes,” Wafika al-Helou told AFP, describing a “terrifying and unbearable” scene.
Another eyewitness, Mutaz Abu Asr, spoke of gunfire and drones, describing more than five strikes in less than three minutes.
Separately, in the central Gaza Strip, Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah reported that Israeli fire killed two other people, including a girl. The civil defence confirmed the toll.
Despite the U.S.-backed ceasefire, violence has not halted in the Gaza Strip, with Israel continuing to target Palestinians it says are militants.
Israeli operations in Gaza have killed at least 1,326 people since the ceasefire came into effect, according to the Palestinian territory’s health ministry, which also operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
The Israeli army has reported five deaths in its ranks over the same period, as well as the death of one civilian contractor.
Published – September 02, 2026 01:08 am IST
