Captured brothers of slain Hamas commander feeding info to IDF: Israel

The brothers of the northern Hamas commander killed by Israel have been captured — and are now feeding information to Israeli authorities, including about the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, officials said Tuesday.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told reporters that Israel is currently interrogating the brothers of  Ahmed Ghandour, the former commander of Hamas’ northern Gaza Brigade who died in an airstrike.

“They are already telling us a large part of the stories of the murders of October 7, among other things,” he said, touting the interrogations as yet another victory in northern Gaza.

Ghandour was among five top Hamas officials confirmed dead last week after Israel investigated a tunnel system that was destroyed by an airstrike last month.

It was the same tunnel Ghandour and his deputy, Wael Rajab, were pictured in while enjoying food and meeting with several other Hamas leaders inside a narrow room months earlier.

Along with Ghandour and Rajab, the airstrike killed the leader of the brigade’s aid battalion, the head of military formation and the officer responsible for observations in the north, Israel said.

The Israel Defense Forces said Ghandour was “responsible for the direction and management of all Hamas terrorist activities in the northern Gaza Strip.”

Ghandour was just one of a dozen Hamas commanders recently killed, including those who led battalions in Beit Lahia, Jabaliya, Sabra, Shati, Darj Tapah and Shejaiya, Israel has said.

During a meeting with the IDF’s 162nd Division on Tuesday, Gallant reiterated that Hamas’ hold on Gaza City is “breaking,” with Jewish forces taking on the terrorist group “deep underground” in its 300-mile-long tunnel system beneath the Palestinian enclave, the Times of Israel said.

“These operations are also being carried out above ground, but there is also a deep descent into the depths, to find bunkers, war rooms, communication centers, ammunition depots and meeting rooms,” Gallant said.

Israel’s tunnel operations also include flooding the system with seawater from the Mediterranean, a strategy that began sometime last month, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The IDF has refused to comment on its methods of destroying the underground “Gaza Metro,” but military chief Herzi Halevi commented that such a plan would be “a good idea.”

Environmental experts have previously warned that such a strategy would have long-lasting impacts on the groundwater across the Gaza Strip.