Hamas Commander Who Helped Abduct a Family From Kibbutz Be'eri Eliminated in Gaza

The IDF said on October 1, 2026 that two strikes in Gaza had killed a Hamas cell commander who took part in abducting six members of one family from Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7, 2023, along with a separate Islamic Jihad commander.

Two strikes, two commanders

The military identified the first man as Muhammad Jamal Mahmoud Abu al-Shaer, a cell commander in Hamas's military wing, killed in a strike in Gaza City. In a separate strike the same day in Jabaliya, the IDF killed Musab Abd al-Jalil Sakheb Belbisi, a commander in the military wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The military did not state an October 7 role for Belbisi. As with other such announcements, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit was the only body named in connection with the strikes; no other agency was credited.

The Be'eri abduction

According to the IDF, Abu al-Shaer raided Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7 and took part in abducting six people into Gaza: Shoshan Haran, her daughter Adi Shoham, Adi's two young children, Yahel and Naveh, and Sharon Avigdori with her daughter Noam, who had been visiting Be'eri for the weekend. All six were among 13 Israelis released by Hamas on November 25, 2023, in an exchange that freed a first group of hostages during a temporary pause in the fighting. A seventh member of the extended family, Tal Shoham, Adi's husband, was not among those released that day and remained in Gaza along with roughly 200 other Israeli hostages still held at the time. The November 2023 exchange, negotiated during a week-long pause in the fighting, was the first large-scale release of hostages taken on October 7, and the Be'eri family's case became one of the names most closely associated with it in Israeli media coverage.

A family's ordeal

The abduction left a lasting mark on the family. Sharon Avigdori's brother, Avshalom Hiran, was killed in the same attack on Be'eri, and Noam's father, Chen Avigdori, became one of the more visible voices in the public campaign pressing for the hostages' release. The family's ordeal, from the abduction itself to the wait for the six to come home and the longer wait for Tal Shoham, became one of the more widely covered stories to come out of the hostages taken that day. More than three years after the attack, the IDF says it has now killed the man it holds responsible for commanding the cell that carried it out.

The IDF presented both strikes, the one on Abu al-Shaer in Gaza City and the one on Belbisi in Jabaliya, as part of its continuing campaign against Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives it links to the October 7 attack and to ongoing military activity in Gaza. The military has repeatedly said that identifying and striking commanders tied to specific October 7 attacks, whether at a military base, a border community, or a civilian kibbutz like Be'eri, remains an active part of its operations in the Strip more than three years after the massacre.