Brigadier General Fayeq Al-Mabhouh[A] (Arabic: فائق المبحوح, romanized: Fā'iq Al-Mabḥūḥ; Hebrew: פאיק אל-מבחוח; 1968–2024)[3][1] was the Director-General of Central Operations in the Ministry of the Interior and National Security in the Gaza Strip.
[11][12] Israeli sources claimed that as the head of Hamas's internal security forces he was in charge of quashing political dissent across the Gaza Strip.
[19] Sources told The New Arab (UK edition):[20] "The occupation government had responded to the mediators earlier by saying that they did not mind the presence of some Palestinian police, with the aim of participating in the aid distribution process, but it seems that the occupation army was surprised by the level of organisation and the great success of the process of entering aid into the northernmost areas of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, more than four months after aid stopped arriving in those areas, which prompted him to forcefully enter that line to prevent any presence that indicates administrative and field control by the Hamas movement".
[1][22][25] The raid was launched at approximately 2:30 am, by troops from the IDF’s 401st Armored Brigade and other units, including special forces and the Shin Bet security agency encircling the hospital.
[17][9] The Israel Arabic account of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the X platform announced the killing of Al-Mabhouh, describing him as, "the head of the Operations Directorate of the Internal Security Service of the Hamas terrorist organization.
Hamas released an extremely strongly worded statement, in which they claimed the killing of a civilian police officer was a violation of international law.
[27] It read, in part: "This terrorist crime, by targeting civilian police protected under international humanitarian law, is further evidence of the Nazi enemy’s efforts to spread chaos, undermine societal peace in the Gaza Strip, and perpetuate the state of famine from which our people suffer, in implementation of the plan of a war of extermination and the displacement of our people from their land".
[27][28][29] Arabic language social media speculated about the motives for the killing and the attack on the hospital, with comments such as, "The trucks passed over the past two days peacefully, without chaos, massacres, stampedes, wounded, or martyrs, but the criminal occupation does not like it.
[1] Their father immigrated to the Jabalia camp in the Gaza Strip from the town of Beit Tima (near Ashkelon) in 1948 during the 1948 Palestine war.
[1] His early work with Hamas included student protests, and pursuing drug dealers with a group focused on enforcing an Islamic ideal of morality.
[1] Speaking about the assassination of his brother Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh the United Arab Emirates in 2010, Fayeq said, "He was very secretive about his work and kept his family life separate.
In 2004, the day Ezzedeen Sheikh Khalil (who Haaretz describe as "a senior Hamas figure also involved in arms smuggling") was killed in Damascus, security cameras in Mahmoud's home showed a bomb under his vehicle, and he escaped.