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By: Fern Sidman
In the chaotic and horrifying hours following the Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, one particular video became permanently etched into the consciousness of Israelis and millions around the world. A terrified young woman screamed, “Don’t kill me,” while being dragged away on a motorcycle by armed terrorists from Gaza. Her arms stretched desperately toward her boyfriend, who was being restrained by several men as the couple was violently separated amid the carnage surrounding the Nova music festival.
That woman was Noa Argamani. Less than one week before her 26th birthday, she was abducted into Gaza and held captive for 245 days. The footage of her kidnapping rapidly became one of the defining visual symbols of the Hamas attack that killed approximately 1,200 people and resulted in the abduction of roughly 250 hostages.
Now, according to extensive reporting on Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal, the two men seen in the video restraining Argamani’s boyfriend were later identified by Israeli intelligence officials and killed in separate Israeli airstrikes. Their deaths formed part of one of the most expansive and technologically sophisticated manhunts in modern warfare — a covert Israeli campaign aimed at locating and eliminating every identifiable participant in the Oct. 7 atrocities.
The operation, according to current and former Israeli officials cited by The Wall Street Journal, has become both a military campaign and a deeply personal national mission. Israeli intelligence services, military operatives, and counterterror officials have reportedly compiled lists containing thousands of names connected to the massacre, ranging from senior Hamas planners to foot soldiers and even peripheral participants.
⭕️ APPREHENDED: 3 terrorists affiliated with a Hamas-linked terrorist network in Hebron, who were planning to carry out a shooting attack in the immediate timeframe.
Additionally, security forces operated in the area of Deir al-Ghusun and apprehended an additional terrorist who…
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 21, 2026
No role, Israeli officials insist, is too insignificant.
One example cited by The Wall Street Journal involved a man who drove a tractor through Israel’s border fence during the initial breach on Oct. 7. Nearly 2 years after the attack, Israeli intelligence reportedly identified him, tracked his movements inside Gaza, and targeted him in an airstrike while he walked through a narrow urban street.
The campaign has continued despite shifting regional priorities, including Israel’s confrontation with Iran and intermittent cease-fire arrangements in Gaza. Israeli officials say hundreds of operatives tied to Oct. 7 have already been killed or captured.
On Friday, Israel announced the killing of Ezzedin al-Haddad, one of the last remaining senior Hamas military leaders believed to have helped orchestrate the Oct. 7 massacre. Haddad had reportedly served as Hamas’s military commander in Gaza since 2025 and was considered among the organization’s most senior surviving operational figures.
“The IDF will continue to pursue our enemies, strike them and hold accountable everyone who took part in the October 7th massacre,” Israeli military chief Eyal Zamir declared after Haddad’s death was confirmed.
According to the information provided in The Wall Street Journal report, Israeli intelligence agencies have employed an extraordinary array of surveillance and forensic technologies to build cases against suspected participants in the attack. Hamas terrorists who filmed themselves during the massacre using mobile phones and GoPro cameras reportedly provided Israeli intelligence with enormous quantities of exploitable data.
Security officials cited in the report said operatives may be marked for death without trial if investigators establish at least 2 independent pieces of evidence linking them directly to crimes committed during the Oct. 7 assault.
Military intelligence officers and members of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, reportedly spend countless hours analyzing videos uploaded to social media, reviewing intercepted phone calls, tracking location data from cellular networks, and interrogating detained Gazans in efforts to reconstruct precisely who participated in specific atrocities.
According to the report, Israeli agents utilize facial recognition systems capable of identifying individuals appearing in crowd footage, combat videos, and surveillance recordings. Intelligence teams also reportedly monitor the movement patterns of militants’ friends and relatives in hopes of locating hidden operatives.
“It’s really, really hard work to locate those people,” former Shin Bet official Guy Chen told The Wall Street Journal. “You have to know at the exact second where this guy is located.”
Even after temporary cease-fires and hostage releases, Israeli forces have continued targeting individuals believed responsible for the massacre.
On April 12, Israeli forces killed Ali Sami Mohammad Shakra, identified by Israel as a Hamas platoon commander allegedly involved in the Nova festival massacre and the kidnapping of several hostages, including American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin.
Following the strike, the Israeli military publicly released an image allegedly extracted from Oct. 7 footage showing Shakra leaning from the window of a vehicle near the abduction scene.
Just days earlier, Israel announced the killing of Islamic Jihad militant Abd al-Rahman Ammar Hassan Khudari, accused of participating in the attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz, where at least 25% of residents were either murdered or kidnapped.
A Hamas official condemned the campaign, telling The Wall Street Journal that the killings represented “nothing but an extension of the policy of extrajudicial executions and systematic killing that Israel has practiced against the Palestinian people for decades.”
At the same time, hundreds of Gazans accused of involvement in the Oct. 7 massacre remain in Israeli custody awaiting prosecution. Israel’s parliament recently approved legislation establishing a special military tribunal system to oversee their trials.
For many Israelis, however, the campaign transcends legal procedure and reflects something more visceral: national trauma and the demand for accountability.
“In the Middle East, revenge is an important part of the discourse,” Michael Milstein, a former senior Israeli military intelligence official specializing in Palestinian affairs, told The Wall Street Journal. “It is about how serious anyone in your environment sees you. Unfortunately this is the language of this neighborhood.”
The emotional complexity surrounding the campaign is perhaps best illustrated by the families of hostages themselves.
Yacov Argamani, father of Noa Argamani, said his only hope during his daughter’s captivity was that she might survive long enough to reunite with her terminally ill mother. That wish was granted when Noa was rescued during a dramatic Israeli operation and reunited with her mother for 3 final weeks before her death.
“The Almighty fulfilled our wish,” Yacov Argamani said.
Yet when asked about the subsequent killing of the men involved in his daughter’s abduction, he expressed ambivalence.
“Revenge, I don’t know what it adds,” he said. “I’m telling you honestly, I don’t know what it adds.”
According to The Wall Street Journal report, the Israeli operation bears unmistakable similarities to Israel’s historic post-Munich assassination campaign following the murder of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics.
After the catastrophic intelligence failures surrounding Oct. 7, Israeli operatives reportedly approached Shin Bet leadership to establish a special task force named NILI — a Hebrew acronym meaning “The Eternal One of Israel Doesn’t Lie.” The name deliberately echoed a World War I-era Jewish espionage network and symbolized Israel’s determination that no participant in the massacre would escape accountability.
‼️🔎EXPOSED: How terrorist organizations in Gaza use children as human shields for terrorism.
In this video, a Hamas terrorist was identified bringing weapons to children near a school in Gaza, where the children were seen “playing” with the weapons. pic.twitter.com/ytRUdT8hee
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 20, 2026
“The clear message to all future enemies is to think again about the price of a terrorist operation like that,” former senior Shin Bet official Shalom Ben Hanan told The Wall Street Journal.
The campaign has extended far beyond Gaza’s borders. Israeli operations have reportedly targeted Hamas leaders in Lebanon and Iran, including Saleh al-Arouri, Hamas’s senior operative in Lebanon.
According to the report, Arouri returned to Beirut on New Year’s Day 2024 despite warnings from Hezbollah members to avoid electronic communications. Israeli missiles subsequently struck the office where he met with fellow Hamas officials, killing all seven men present.
Investigators reportedly discovered phones and internet-connected devices among the wreckage.
Months later, Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran after Israel allegedly planted explosives inside his room at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps guesthouse.
“It will take time, just as it did after Munich,” Mossad chief David Barnea said in 2024. “But our hands will reach them, wherever they are.”
According to The Wall Street Journal report, some Israeli officials believe the campaign serves as a deterrent designed to discourage future participation in terrorist organizations. Others fear the killings may instead intensify radicalization and recruitment.
Tahani Mustafa of the European Council on Foreign Relations argued that Hamas recruitment has actually increased during the war.
“It had nothing to do with dogma and everything to do with necessity,” she said. “It’s either resist or die.”
Legal experts remain divided regarding the operation’s implications under international law.
Rachel VanLandingham, a national security law expert and former U.S. Air Force judge advocate, told The Wall Street Journal that combatants in wartime may lawfully be targeted, including members of nonstate militant organizations such as Hamas.
“There’s nothing inherently wrong with prioritizing people on a target list as long as they’re belligerents,” she said.
However, she emphasized that civilians suspected of crimes should ideally be captured and prosecuted rather than summarily killed.
“The extrajudicial killing of civilians is a war crime,” she warned, noting that the central challenge lies in determining who qualifies as an active combatant.
Israeli officials argue that civilians directly participating in hostilities become lawful targets under international law.
The campaign has persisted even during periods of reduced hostilities. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Israeli forces continue responding aggressively whenever Hamas violates cease-fire arrangements or attacks Israeli troops.
One such operation occurred on Feb. 4, when Israeli soldiers reportedly came under fire near a dividing line separating Israeli and Hamas-controlled areas. Later that day, Israeli drones targeted Muhammed Issam Hassan al-Habil, whom intelligence officials accused of involvement in the death of hostage Noa Marciano.
Then came Friday’s massive operation against Ezzedin al-Haddad.
Israeli aircraft reportedly dropped 13 bombs on a Gaza City apartment complex and a fleeing vehicle. Hamas said the strike killed Haddad, his wife, his daughter, and multiple civilians. Israel responded that Haddad had been actively rebuilding Hamas’s military infrastructure.
Among those who celebrated Haddad’s death was former hostage Emily Damari, a dual Israeli-British citizen held underground for nearly 500 days.
“He planned the 7th, murdered my friends, many other dear people, planned my kidnapping, and held me in Hamas’s tunnels,” Damari wrote on Instagram. “This is a very very very important closing of the circle for many people.”
Others expressed a different sentiment.
Aviva Siegal, abducted alongside her husband and held captive for 51 days, said that despite everything she endured, she no longer wished to see additional bloodshed.
“I’m alive,” she said quietly, “and that’s enough for me.”
