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Here Are Some of the US-Designated Terrorists That Israel Has Eliminated Over the Past Year
Iraqi Shiite Muslim men from the Iran-backed group Kataib Hezbollah march in a Quds Day parade, in Baghdad, July 25, 2014. Photo: Reuters / Thaier al-Sudani.
In its fight against Iranian regime-backed terror groups in both Gaza and Lebanon, Israel is not only defending its own territory, citizens, and national interests — but it is also helping the United States and other Western nations that are threatened by the Islamic Republic and its proxies.
Since October 7, Israel has eliminated several top Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, who have been designated as terrorists by the US State Department, including some who have had American blood on their hands for more than 40 years.
The following is a list of these US-designated terrorists that Israel has eliminated since October 7, 2023:
Marwan Issa
Terror affiliation: Hamas
Date added to the US terrorism list: September 10, 2019
Date of death: March 11, 2024
Nicknamed “The Shadow Man,” Marwan Issa was the deputy head of Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades, and was considered to be the third highest-ranking Hamas official in Gaza.
One of the earliest members of the Qassam Brigades, Issa was one of the key figures who helped develop it into a paramilitary organization, and he was also a central force behind many anti-Israel terror attacks since the late 1980s.
Issa is considered to be one of the central figures behind the planning of Hamas’ October 7 attack.
Ismail Haniyeh
Terror affiliation: Hamas
Date added to the US terrorism list: January 31, 2018
Date of death: July 31, 2024
Ismail Haniyeh was the political head of Hamas, having previously served as its head in Gaza (until 2017).
As head of the terror organization, Haniyeh played a role in the violent ouster of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority from the Gaza Strip in 2007.
Following the October 7 attack, Haniyeh both publicly celebrated the rampage, and justified it as an effective assault against the Jewish State.
Abu Anas Al-Ghandour
Terror affiliation: Hamas
Date added to the US terrorism list: April 6, 2017
Date of death: November 14, 2023
Abu Anas Al-Ghandour, also known as Ahmed Ghandour, was a senior member of Hamas, serving as the Qassam Brigades chief in northern Gaza and also as a member of the terror organization’s decision-making council.
Al-Ghandour was responsible for several terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and military personnel in both Gaza and the West Bank, including the 2006 kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
According to the IDF, Al-Ghandour was a “leading figure in the planning and execution of the October 7th massacre.”
Prior to the operational pause, IDF aircraft eliminated five senior Hamas commanders in Gaza:
· Ahmed Ghandour, Commander of Hamas’ Northern Gaza Brigade
· Aiman Siam, Head of Hamas’ Rockets Array
· Wael Rajeb, Deputy Commander of Hamas’ Northern Gaza Brigade
· Farsan Halifa,… pic.twitter.com/iter9OdBnX
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 27, 2023
Muhammed Deif
Terror affiliation: Hamas
Date added to the US terrorism list: September 8, 2015
Date of death: July 13, 2024
Considered to be the number two Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, Muhammed Deif was head of the Qassam Brigades and is thought to be the mastermind behind the October 7 attack.
A prominent member of Hamas for decades, Deif spearheaded Hamas’ use of rockets and tunnels and was also implicated in many terror bombings against Israeli civilians during the 1990s and 2000s.
In the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, Deif was responsible for firing rockets at Israel during humanitarian ceasefires, endangering both Israeli and Palestinian civilians.
Rawhi Mushtaha
Terror affiliation: Hamas
Date added to the US terrorism list: September 8, 2015
Date of death: July 2024
Considered to be the “de facto prime minister of Gaza,” Rawhi Mushtaha was the highest-ranking political leader of Hamas in Gaza, while also being involved in the terror organization’s violent activities.
An early leader of the Qassam Brigades, Mushtaha was sentenced to four life terms in Israeli prison for orchestrating terror attacks against the Jewish State, only to be released in 2011 during the Shalit deal.
Mushtaha was a close confidante of Yahya Sinwar, having served with him in Israeli prison and then co-founding Hamas’ internal security service together. This security service was responsible for the torture and killing of Palestinians suspected of cooperating with Israel.
Rawhi Mushtaha was one of the few Hamas leaders to be intimately involved in planning the October 7 attack on southern Israel.
Approximately 3 months ago, in a joint IDF and ISA strike in Gaza, the following terrorists were eliminated:
Rawhi Mushtaha, the Head of the Hamas government in Gaza
Sameh al-Siraj, who held the security portfolio on Hamas’ political bureau and Hamas’ Labor Committee
Sami… pic.twitter.com/6xpH6tOOot
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 3, 2024
Fu’ad Shukr
Terror affiliation: Hezbollah
Date added to the US terrorism list: September 10, 2019
Date of death: July 30, 2024
Fu’ad Shukr was one of Hezbollah’s most senior leaders, serving on its highest decision-making council and also directing its military operations.
One of the earliest members of the Lebanon-based terror group, Shukr helped coordinate attacks on foreigners in the 1980s, controlled the terror organization’s operations in southern Lebanon in the 1990s and 2000s, and was part of Hezbollah’s deployment to Syria in the 2010s to defend the Assad regime.
In his role as commander of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon during the 2000s, Shukr orchestrated a number of cross-border attacks against Israel, including the ambush and kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers in 2006 that precipitated the Second Lebanon War.
As a point man between Iran and Hezbollah, Shukr is largely credited with helping to expand Hezbollah’s arsenal into one of the largest controlled by a non-state actor.
In 2017, the US government offered a $5 million reward for information on Shukr’s whereabouts, for his role in the 1983 suicide bombing of the US Marine Barracks (which killed 241 American servicemembers) and French military barracks (which killed 58 French personnel).
Ibrahim Aqil
Terror affiliation: Hezbollah
Date added to the US terrorism list: September 10, 2019
Date of death: September 20, 2024
Similar to Fu’ad Shukr (who he replaced after the latter’s assassination), Ibrahim Aqil was an early member of Hezbollah who rose through the ranks to become a member of the terror group’s highest military body.
Through his 40-year career as a terrorist, Aqil had led Hezbollah’s foreign operations unit, was instrumental in providing Hezbollah’s support to the Assad regime during the Syrian civil war, and served as commander of the Radwan Forces (Hezbollah’s elite troops).
In the past few years, Aqil had been involved in several attacks across the Israel-Lebanon border, including the Megiddo Junction bombing in March 2023.
The United States offered a $7 million reward for Ibrahim Aqil’s whereabouts due to his involvement in anti-American terrorism in Lebanon in the 1980s, including the taking of American and German citizens as hostages, the 1983 US embassy bombing in Beirut (which killed 63 people), and the US Marines barracks bombing.
Ali Karaki
Terror affiliation: Hezbollah
Date added to the US terrorism list: September 10, 2019
Date of death: September 27, 2024
A member of Hezbollah’s highest military body, Ali Karaki (also known as Ali Karki), was commander of Hezbollah’s southern sector and was responsible for all of the terror group’s attacks that originated in southern Lebanon.
According to the Alma Research and Education Center, every anti-Israel attack since October 8 that originated in the south was either authorized by Karaki or directly coordinated with him.
After the assassination of Ibrahim Aqil, Karaki was chosen to be one of his successors.
Following a failed assassination attempt earlier that week, Ali Karaki was killed in the Israeli airstrike against Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah.
Hashem Safieddine
Terror affiliation: Hezbollah
Date added to the US terrorism list: May 19, 2017
Date of death: Presumed killed October 3, 2024
A relative of Hassan Nasrallah, Hashem Safieddine was presumed to be Nasrallah’s successor as secretary general of Hezbollah following the latter’s assassination by Israel.
During Nasrallah’s lifetime, Safieddine was considered to be the number two figure in Hezbollah’s hierarchy, serving as head of the terror organization’s executive council and as a member of its chief military body.
Safieddine also had close ties to Hezbollah’s backers in Iran, which even extended into his family life – his son is married to the daughter of Qassem Soleimani, the former head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, who was assassinated by the United States in 2020.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Here Are Some of the US-Designated Terrorists That Israel Has Eliminated Over the Past Year first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Blocks Ramallah Meeting with Arab Ministers, Israeli Official Says
A closed Israeli military gate stands near Ramallah in the West Bank, February 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Israel will not allow a planned meeting in the Palestinian administrative capital of Ramallah, in the West Bank, to go ahead, an Israeli official said on Saturday, after Arab ministers planning to attend were stopped from coming.
The move, days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government announced one of the largest expansions of settlements in the West Bank in years, underlined escalating tensions over the issue of international recognition of a future Palestinian state.
Saturday’s meeting comes ahead of an international conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, that is due to be held in New York on June 17-20 to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood, which Israel fiercely opposes.
The delegation of senior Arab officials due to visit Ramallah – including the Jordanian, Egyptian, Saudi Arabian and Bahraini foreign ministers – postponed the visit after “Israel’s obstruction of it,” Jordan’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the block was “a clear breach of Israel’s obligations as an occupying force.”
The ministers required Israeli consent to travel to the West Bank from Jordan.
An Israeli official said the ministers intended to take part in “a provocative meeting” to discuss promoting the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“Such a state would undoubtedly become a terrorist state in the heart of the land of Israel,” the official said. “Israel will not cooperate with such moves aimed at harming it and its security.”
A Saudi source told Reuters that Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud had delayed a planned trip to the West Bank.
Israel has come under increasing pressure from the United Nations and European countries which favour a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, under which an independent Palestinian state would exist alongside Israel.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that recognizing a Palestinian state was not only a “moral duty but a political necessity.”
Palestinians want the West Bank territory, which was seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as the core of a future state along with Gaza and East Jerusalem.
But the area is now criss-crossed with settlements that have squeezed some 3 million Palestinians into pockets increasingly cut off from each other though a network of military checkpoints.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the announcement this week of 22 new settlements in the West Bank was an “historic moment” for settlements and “a clear message to Macron.” He said recognition of a Palestinian state would be “thrown into the dustbin of history.”
The post Israel Blocks Ramallah Meeting with Arab Ministers, Israeli Official Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Gaza Aid Supplies Hit by Looting as Hamas Ceasefire Response Awaited
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Armed men hijacked dozens of aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip overnight and hundreds of desperate Palestinians joined in to take supplies, local aid groups said on Saturday as officials waited for Hamas to respond to the latest ceasefire proposals.
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close but Hamas has said it is still studying the latest proposals from his special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. The White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the proposals.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
On Saturday, the Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the increasingly desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war began 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
At the same time, a separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on the social media platform X.
NO BREAD IN WEEKS
The World Food Program said it brought 77 trucks carrying flour into Gaza overnight and early on Saturday and all of them were stopped on the way, with food taken by hungry people.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” it said in a statement.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Overnight on Saturday, he said trucks had been stopped by armed groups near Khan Younis as they were headed towards a World Food Programme warehouse in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza and hundreds of desperate people had carried off supplies.
“We could understand that some are driven by hunger and starvation, some may not have eaten bread in several weeks, but we can’t understand armed looting, and it is not acceptable at all,” he said.
Israel says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
The post Gaza Aid Supplies Hit by Looting as Hamas Ceasefire Response Awaited first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Hamas said on Saturday it was seeking amendments to a US-backed proposal for a temporary ceasefire with Israel in Gaza, but President Donald Trump’s envoy rejected the group’s response as “totally unacceptable.”
The Palestinian terrorist group said it was willing to release 10 living hostages and hand over the bodies of 18 dead in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. But Hamas reiterated demands for an end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, conditions Israel has rejected.
A Hamas official described the group’s response to the proposals from Trump’s special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff as “positive” but said it was seeking some amendments. The official did not elaborate on the changes being sought by the group.
“This response aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and to ensure the flow of humanitarian aid to our people in the Strip,” Hamas said in a statement.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
A Palestinian official familiar with the talks told Reuters that among amendments Hamas is seeking is the release of the hostages in three phases over the 60-day truce and more aid distribution in different areas. Hamas also wants guarantees the deal will lead to a permanent ceasefire, the official said.
There was no immediate response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office to the Hamas statement.
Israel has previously rejected Hamas’ conditions, instead demanding the complete disarmament of the group and its dismantling as a military and governing force, along with the return of all 58 remaining hostages.
Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close after the latest proposals, and the White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the terms.
Saying he had received Hamas’ response, Witkoff wrote in a posting on X: “It is totally unacceptable and only takes us backward. Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week.”
On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had killed Mohammad Sinwar, Hamas’ Gaza chief on May 13, confirming what Netanyahu said earlier this week.
Sinwar, the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the group’s deceased leader and mastermind of the October 2023 attack on Israel, was the target of an Israeli strike on a hospital in southern Gaza. Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied his death.
The Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said on Saturday it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
On Saturday, aid groups said dozens of World Food Program trucks carrying flour to Gaza bakeries had been hijacked by armed groups and subsequently looted by people desperate for food after weeks of mounting hunger.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” the WFP said in a statement.
‘A MOCKERY’
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on X.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
A separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Israel denies operating a policy of starvation and says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
Hamas denies looting supplies and has executed a number of suspected looters.
The post Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.