Who was the Al-Qassam commander, nicknamed 'The Ghost', who Israel put a 12 million bounty on?
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, TEL AVIV – Israel’s announcement regarding the targeting of Izzuddin Al-Haddad, a commander from the Izzuddin Al-Qassam Brigade, known as ‘The Ghost of Al-Qassam’, has once again highlighted Tel Aviv’s targeted killing policy in Gaza.
This move raises questions about the meaning behind the timing of the operation and its impact on the structure of Hamas’s military wing.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, announced in a joint statement that Al-Haddad was the target of an airstrike on an apartment in the Rimal area of Gaza City. They stated that the operation was carried out under their direct orders.
According to the Israeli statement, as reported by Aljazeera on Saturday (16 May 2026), Al-Haddad was one of the most important military figures in Hamas.
The statement also affirmed that the Israel Defence Forces and the Shin Bet internal security agency will continue to implement what they call a policy of eliminating threats, as well as pursuing those they consider responsible for the 7 October attacks.
Meanwhile, sources from ambulance and emergency services reported that seven people were killed, including three women and a child, and more than 50 were injured as a result of the bombing of an apartment and a civilian vehicle in the Rimal area, west of Gaza City.
Through an interactive screen, journalist Suhaib Al-Asa explained that the attack occurred in the area of the intersection of Al-Jalaa Street with one of the small streets in the Rimal area, which is one of the most densely populated areas in the western part of Gaza City.
He added that the available data shows that the operation was carried out in two stages. The first stage involved an attack on the apartment where he lived, and a few minutes later, a car that was trying to leave the location towards Al-Shifa Hospital via Al-Jalaa Street or Yarmouk Street was also bombed.
According to him, this pattern of successive attacks indicates that the Israeli military was trying to ensure that the target did not survive, especially since there is suspicion that the victims of the first attack were transferred to the vehicle, which then became the target again.