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.
Hamas’s Interior Ministry in Gaza and Israeli media identified the man as Muein al-Arabid. His wife was killed and several of his children were injured. 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 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. 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”. 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. 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.
