Israel's Tech-Fueled Hunt Targets Thousands from Oct. 7 Attack

A secretive Israeli task force is using a vast surveillance apparatus to hunt down every participant in the Oct. 7 attacks, a campaign of retribution that recently killed a top Hamas commander and continues despite a fragile cease-fire.

(Edgen) – Israel is conducting one of the most extensive and technologically advanced assassination campaigns in modern warfare, systematically targeting thousands of individuals it alleges were involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. The campaign, which spans Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, recently eliminated Hamas's military commander Ezzedine al-Haddad in a Gaza City airstrike, even as a tense cease-fire holds.

“In the Middle East, revenge is an important part of the discourse. It is about how serious anyone in your environment sees you,” said Michael Milstein, a former senior Israeli military intelligence officer on Palestinian affairs. “Unfortunately this is the language of this neighborhood.”

The operation relies on a vast trove of data, including facial recognition scans from social media videos, intercepted phone calls, and location data from cell towers, according to current and former Israeli security officials. The target list includes thousands of names, from the senior leadership who planned the assault that killed 1,200 people to lower-level militants, including a tractor driver who breached the border fence.

This campaign of retribution serves as both a deterrent and a closing of the circle for a nation traumatized by the attacks. Yet it also fuels the ongoing conflict, with Hamas appointing a new military chief within days of al-Haddad's death and vowing to continue its fight, raising questions about whether the cycle of violence can be broken.

The NILI Task Force

Shortly after the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli intelligence agents established a special task force named NILI, a Hebrew acronym for “The Eternal One of Israel Doesn’t Lie.” The name, first used by a Jewish spy network in World War I, signifies a promise that no attacker will be forgotten. The campaign echoes Israel’s long-running operation to assassinate the Palestinian militants responsible for the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Agents from the Shin Bet security service and military intelligence require at least two pieces of evidence to mark a person for death without trial. The evidence can come from GoPro footage militants filmed themselves, interrogations of detainees, or intercepted communications where attackers bragged about their actions.

Al-Haddad Killed, Awda Appointed

The campaign has targeted Hamas’s entire command structure. On Friday, May 17, Israeli jets dropped 13 bombs on an apartment and a vehicle in Gaza City, killing Ezzedine al-Haddad, who had commanded Hamas’s armed wing since May 2025. Israel said he was a key planner of the Oct. 7 massacre and was involved in managing the hostage-taking system.

In his place, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades have appointed Mohammed Awda, according to multiple Hamas sources cited by Asharq Al-Awsat. Awda, who is in his late forties or early fifties, was the head of military intelligence at the time of the Oct. 7 attack and is credited with transforming the unit into one of the most influential branches within Hamas. His appointment signals a continuity of the group's militant operations and intelligence focus.

A Campaign Without Borders

The hunt extends far beyond Gaza's borders. In January 2024, an Israeli drone strike hit a Hamas office in Beirut, killing Saleh al-Arouri, the group's top operative in Lebanon, along with six other officials. Six months later, a bomb hidden in a guesthouse in Tehran killed Hamas’s overall chief, Ismail Haniyeh.

“It will take time, just as it did after Munich,” Mossad director David Barnea said in 2024. “But our hands will reach them, wherever they are.”

While international law permits the targeting of combatants during a conflict, the extrajudicial nature of the killings raises legal and ethical questions. Critics argue the campaign amounts to extrajudicial executions, particularly when it is unclear if a target is a civilian or a combatant. A Hamas official called the campaign an “extension of the policy of extrajudicial executions and systematic killing that Israel has practiced against the Palestinian people for decades.”

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