The Israeli military said on Wednesday it killed a senior Hamas operative who had been convicted of orchestrating two bus bombings in 2004 that left 16 civilians dead and dozens more wounded.
The bombings were among the deadliest attacks during the second intifada, the Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s.
In a joint statement, the military and the Shin Bet domestic security agency said their forces killed Bassem Hashem Al-Haymouni in a strike in the Gaza Strip last week.
They described him as "a senior operative" for Hamas who "had been active since 2004" as part of a cell responsible for carrying out deadly attacks in Israel.
They identified him as the mastermind of an August 2004 attack in the southern Israeli city of Beer Sheva, in which suicide bombers blew up two buses.
He "dispatched several suicide bombers to carry out a coordinated attack on two buses in Beer Sheva, in which 16 Israeli civilians were murdered and approximately 100 others were injured", the statement said.
Haymouni was apprehended and sentenced, but was released in 2011 as part of the so-called "Shalit deal", in which Israel freed more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of soldier Gilad Shalit.
Palestinian fighters had seized Shalit in 2006 during a cross-border raid near the Kerem Shalom crossing and held him hostage for five years.
His case became a major national issue in Israel.
The military and Shin Bet statement said that after Haymouni was released, he "resumed recruiting attackers and directing terrorist activity".
It added that the strike on Haymouni was also in response to violations of the ongoing ceasefire in Gaza.
"During the war he was involved in the production and placement of explosive devices intended to harm Israeli troops," it said, referring to the war in Gaza sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
The US-brokered Gaza ceasefire entered its second phase last month, and foresees a demilitarization of the territory -- including the disarmament of Hamas -- along with a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces.
Hamas has said that disarmament is a red line, although it has indicated it could consider handing over its weapons to a future Palestinian governing authority.
A Palestinian technocratic committee has been set up with a goal of taking over day-to-day governance in the Strip, but it remains unclear whether, or how, it will address the issue of demilitarization.
