Israel’s military said Wednesday that Musbah Salim Musbah Dayyah, leader of the Mujahideen terrorist group responsible for the abduction and murder of hostage Shiri Bibas and her children, was killed in a joint strike carried out with the Shin Bet in Gaza.
According to the IDF, Dayyah played a key role in organizing attacks in both Gaza and the West Bank. He was the fourth commander from the organization eliminated in recent months, operating in the Nuseirat area before the strike that killed him.
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Among the group’s most notorious crimes was the abduction of Shiri Bibas and her young sons, Kfir and Ariel, on October 7. The family became a powerful symbol of the movement demanding the release of hostages held in Gaza. It was later discovered that Shiri and the children were murdered in captivity, and their bodies were returned to Israel in February during a round of hostage releases.
The Mujahideen faction, formally known as Kataib al-Mujahideen, is the armed wing of the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement and was among the organizations that infiltrated Israel during the October 7 assault. The IDF said its terrorists were responsible for killings and kidnappings that day, including the deaths of Israeli-American-Canadian couple Judy Weinstein Haggai and Gad Haggai, along with several Thai workers.
Over the summer, the IDF also eliminated Kataib al-Mujahideen military chief Mahmoud Muhammad Hamid Kuhail, known as Abu al-Mu’tasim, and the group’s overall head, As’ad Abu Sharaiya. Security officials describe the faction as small but lethal, with a structure designed to operate covertly.
Separately, on August 10, an Israeli airstrike killed Jihad Kamal Salem Najjar, a Hamas operative who abducted Yarden Bibas from his home in Nir Oz during the October 7 assault. Bibas, later released, said the strike gave him “a small part of closure” and thanked Israel’s security forces.