Israel Says Key Oct. 7 Hamas Commander Is Dead

The Israeli military says it has killed a Hamas militant who appeared in a widely viewed video from October 7.

Ahmed Fozi Wadia was seen in a video drinking from a bottle of cola in front of two children wounded in a grenade attack that had just killed their father.

Wadia was part of the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostage, which triggered the war in Gaza now in its 11th month and has killed more than 40,000 people, according to Gaza health officials.

Wadia was a commander in a Hamas commando battalion and a member of a paragliding unit.

The Israeli military said Wadia flew into the community of Netiv HaAsara on a paraglider before launching the attack on civilians there.

In a video of the attack on the Taasa family home, which was screened for journalists, diplomats and lawmakers around the world by Israeli officials, Gil Taasa is seen running to a shelter with his two boys when a grenade is thrown in.

Taasa jumped on the grenade and was killed. His sons were wounded.

The militant, now identified as Wadia, is then seen standing over the wounded boys and drinking cola from their fridge.

The Israeli military also said that an additional Hamas figure was killed in the strike.

They said he was responsible for supplying explosives for the Oct. 7 attack.

In the announcement, the military said aircraft struck a compound in Gaza City on Saturday where Hamas militants were operating, killing eight militants, including Wadia.

The military said the compound that was hit was near the Al-Ahli hospital but said the hospital itself was not hit.

The Health Ministry in Gaza reported a strike on the hospital grounds on Saturday and said it killed three people.

The news follows protests and a general strike in Israel this week after the bodies of six Israeli hostages were found dead in Gaza on Sunday by the Israeli military, prompting a hostage family group to say that Netanyahu has failed.

There has been growing public anger in Israel at the government’s failure to secure the return of hostages held in Gaza.

On Monday, President Joe Biden said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not doing enough to get a hostage deal and ceasefire.

Biden was speaking to reporters outside the White House ahead of meeting the US hostage deal negotiating team alongside Vice President Kamala Harris.

This article includes reporting from The Associated Press