The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed Hamas commander Wasim Atallah Ali near the coastal city of Tripoli, Lebanon, on February 5. The elimination adds to the growing number of Palestinian terrorists who have been killed in Lebanon since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
The IDF said that the Israeli Navy carried out the strike that killed Ali. According to the IDF, Ali served as a Hamas commander and was responsible for training and exercises in the group’s Lebanon branch.
Al Jazeera, citing Palestinian sources, reported that Ali was viewed as a “prominent organizational and political figure in Hamas in the Beddawi camp,” adding that he oversaw the group’s activities and communicated with the organization’s supporters in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon.
Hamas issued a statement condemning the attack, saying it was a “criminal Zionist aggression against Lebanon and the Palestinian refugee camps.”
The strike against Ali appears to be part of a broader Israeli campaign targeting Palestinian terrorist groups in Lebanon since the October 7 attack on Israel.
On March 3, the IDF killed Abu Hamza Rami, the commander of Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s (PIJ) Lebanon branch, in an airstrike on Beirut. The IDF said that Rami held the position for several years and was responsible for overseeing and facilitating hundreds of attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF personnel. From his base in Lebanon, he played a central role in advancing the organization’s operational activity against Israel, the IDF noted.
In February, an Israeli airstrike on a Hamas headquarters in the Palestinian camp of Ain al Hilweh in southern Lebanon killed two members of the Islamist group. The IDF said that the headquarters was used by Hamas to train for terrorist attacks against the Israeli military and the Israeli home front.
Days before the Ain al Hilweh strike, the IDF said it killed several operatives from PIJ’s Syrian branch in a strike in southern Lebanon. According to the Israeli military, the terrorists had planned attacks against Israel and were attempting to cross into Syria when they were targeted. The strike was one of several Israeli operations targeting Syrian PIJ operatives in southern Lebanon following the October 7, 2023, attack.
So far, Hamas, PIJ, and other established Iranian-backed Palestinian factions have not claimed attacks against Israel in response to recent IDF strikes against them in Lebanon, nor the broader conflict with Iran.
Joe Truzman is an editor and senior research analyst at FDD's Long War Journal focused primarily on Palestinian armed groups and non-state actors in the Middle East.
Tags: Hamas, IDF, Israel, Israel Hamas, PIJ
