He Held Four Israeli Hostages.
One Was Captain Daniel Perez.
The Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet said Friday that they had killed Muhammad Na’im Jandiya, the head of military security in Hamas’s Shuja’iyya Battalion, in a strike in the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, July 1. On October 7, 2023, according to the military, Jandiya commanded a Nukhba assault cell that overran Kibbutz Nahal Oz and took part in the abduction of Captain Daniel Perez, the 22-year-old tank commander whose body Hamas held in Gaza for two years.
He did not stop there. Through the war, the IDF said, Jandiya held three more Israeli hostages — Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz, and Samer Talalka — in a tunnel beneath Shuja’iyya. All three were killed in December 2023, shot by Israeli soldiers who mistook them for a threat as they emerged waving a white flag.
Four hostages held by one man. None came home alive. And, the military noted, Jandiya was later one of the masked figures who staged Hamas’s choreographed hostage-release ceremonies for the cameras. This is the record.
- 1commanderMuhammad Na'im Jandiya, Hamas Shuja'iyya Battalion security chief, killed July 1 — IDF & Shin Bet
- 4hostagesabducted or held by Jandiya, including Cpt. Daniel Perez — IDF Spokesperson
- 3of themHaim, Shamriz & Talalka, killed by IDF fire on Dec. 15, 2023 — Times of Israel
- 2yearsPerez's body held in Gaza before its return in October 2025 — Times of Israel
In a joint statement on July 3, 2026, the Israel Defense Forces and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) said they had struck and killed Muhammad Na’im Jandiya two days earlier in the northern Gaza Strip. Jandiya, the militaries said, served as the head of military security in Hamas’s Shuja’iyya Battalion — a senior operational role in one of the group’s Gaza City-area formations.
The strike was not framed as a routine battlefield killing. The IDF tied Jandiya directly to the events of October 7, 2023, and to the fate of four specific hostages by name — an unusually detailed accounting that the military reserves for figures it considers central to the abductions. In its statement, the IDF added that in his senior role, Jandiya had “recently advanced” terrorist attacks against Israeli troops operating in Gaza.
A Hamas terrorist who abducted IDF officer Cpt. Daniel Perez during the October 7, 2023, onslaught and later held hostages Yotam Haim, Samar Talalka, and Alon Shamriz in captivity was killed in a strike in the northern Gaza Strip this week, the military and Shin Bet announce.
The announcement lands in the post-ceasefire phase of the war, with living hostages already returned under the October 2025 agreement and Israel continuing targeted operations against the Hamas cadre it holds responsible for the October 7 massacre. For the families named in the statement, the killing of the man who held their sons is neither victory nor closure — it is a fact entered into the record.
Muhammad Na'im Jandiya, head of military security in Hamas's Shuja'iyya Battalion, took part in the October 7 abduction of Cpt. Daniel Perez and held hostages Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz and Samer Talalka in captivity. The IDF and ISA struck and eliminated him in northern Gaza.
According to the IDF and Shin Bet, Jandiya was more than a mid-level fighter. On October 7, he commanded a cell of Hamas’s Nukhba — the group’s elite raiding force — that infiltrated Kibbutz Nahal Oz, the border community where Captain Perez and his tank crew fought and died. That cell, the military said, took part in Perez’s abduction.
After the massacre, the military said, Jandiya was responsible for holding Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz, and Samer Talalka in an underground tunnel in the Shuja’iyya area — the dense Gaza City neighborhood that became one of the war’s hardest-fought battlegrounds. As his battalion’s security chief, he was, in effect, the man responsible for keeping captured Israelis hidden underground.
The IDF added a detail that reframes the propaganda images many around the world saw during the ceasefire: Jandiya was one of the prominent masked operatives who took part in Hamas’s staged hostage-release ceremonies — the armed, hooded men who flanked freed Israelis on platforms and paraded them before cameras and crowds. The same battalion security chief who had held four hostages, three of them now dead, later performed for the release of others.
Cpt. Daniel Perez, 22 — tank commander, 7th Armored Brigade’s 77th Battalion. Killed on October 7 at Nahal Oz; abducted (his body) to Gaza. Remains returned October 2025.
Yotam Haim, 28 — abducted from Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Held in the Shuja’iyya tunnel. Killed by Israeli fire, December 15, 2023.
Alon Shamriz, 26 — abducted from Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Killed by Israeli fire the same day.
Samer Talalka — abducted from near Kibbutz Nir Am. Killed by Israeli fire the same day.
Daniel Perez was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and immigrated to Israel with his family at age 13, settling in Yad Binyamin. He enlisted in November 2020, joined the Armored Corps, completed a tank commander’s course and then an officer’s course. By October 2023 he was a 22-year-old platoon commander in the 7th Armored Brigade’s 77th Battalion.
On the morning of October 7, Perez commanded a tank crew nicknamed “Team Perez” stationed near the Gaza border at Nahal Oz. Between roughly 6:45 a.m. and 9:00 a.m., his crew fought to blunt the first waves of the Hamas assault pouring across the border on motorbikes and pickup trucks. His tank commander later described how the crew “left the security of their position” to try to cut the attackers off. After a prolonged fight, the tank was overrun.
“On that bitter, hasty morning two years ago, Captain Daniel Perez commanded 'Team Perez' — his Nahal Oz unit — with composure and extraordinary courage.”
President Isaac Herzog · eulogy at Mount Herzl · October 15, 2025
The crew paid a brutal price. Loader Tomer Leibovitz and gunner St.-Sgt. Itay Chen — an American-Israeli whose body was also taken to Gaza — were killed. Driver Matan Angrest was wounded and taken alive into captivity, where he later said he was tortured, including by electrocution. Angrest was released in the October 2025 hostage deal, days before Perez’s remains came home.
For months, Perez was listed among the roughly 250 people abducted on October 7. Then, in March 2024, the IDF’s chief rabbinate declared him killed in the battle, his body held in Gaza — based on findings and new intelligence. His family held a first funeral, burying his blood-soaked uniform at Mount Herzl. His actual remains were returned in October 2025 under the ceasefire, and a second funeral was held on October 15, 2025. President Isaac Herzog and former prime minister Naftali Bennett attended. So did Matan Angrest — still pale and weak from captivity, there to bury his commander.
The three men Jandiya held in the tunnel beneath Shuja’iyya were Yotam Haim, 28, and Alon Shamriz, 26 — both seized from Kibbutz Kfar Aza — and Samer Talalka, taken from near Kibbutz Nir Am. What happened to them on December 15, 2023, is one of the war’s most painful episodes, and Israel has never hidden it.
During the Battle of Shuja’iyya, the three men — having escaped or been abandoned by their captors — approached a group of Israeli soldiers. They were shirtless and waving a makeshift white flag, calling out for help in Hebrew. A soldier, the IDF said, mistakenly identified them as a threat and opened fire, killing Shamriz and Talalka and wounding Haim. A commander ordered a ceasefire; Haim was coaxed out of a nearby building minutes later — and, against that order, a soldier shot and killed him too.
The IDF publicly acknowledged that the three hostages had been “mistakenly identified as a threat,” called the deaths an unbearable tragedy, and opened an investigation. The killings triggered mass protests in Israel and intensified pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over the hostage crisis. The families’ grief was compounded by an agonizing symmetry: their sons survived Hamas captivity long enough to reach Israeli lines, only to die there.
“They came out shirtless, holding a white flag, and called for help in Hebrew. They were mistakenly identified as a threat.”
IDF account of the December 15, 2023 deaths of Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz and Samer Talalka
It is that context that makes the July 2026 statement land the way it does. The man Israel says put those three men in the tunnel, and helped drag Daniel Perez into Gaza, is now dead — but so are all four of the hostages whose names the IDF attached to him.
Captain Perez’s remains — and those of his crewmate Itay Chen — returned to Israel under the October 2025 ceasefire and hostage-release agreement, the deal brokered with heavy U.S. involvement that freed the last living hostages and began the phased return of the deceased. President Donald Trump (R) announced the framework and publicly pressured Hamas to return every body it still held, warning that partial compliance would not be treated as good faith.
Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first phase of the peace plan. All of the hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw its troops to an agreed line — the first steps toward a strong and durable peace.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Trump announcing the first phase of the Gaza framework that returned the last living hostages and began the phased return of the deceased.
The return of the dead moved more slowly than the return of the living, and Trump publicly leaned on Hamas over the delay — noting that some bodies were genuinely hard to recover from collapsed tunnels, but that others could be handed over immediately and were not being. For the Perez family, the wait ended in October 2025; for others, it stretched on.
Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but others can be returned now and, for some reason, are not. When I said both sides would be treated fairly, that only applies if they comply with their obligations. I am watching this very closely.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Trump pressing Hamas to hand over the remains of deceased hostages under the ceasefire terms.
Israel had spent two years searching for Perez. Long before his remains were recovered, IDF troops operating in Gaza found his assault rifle inside a booby-trapped compound — a physical trace of the tank commander’s last fight, recovered from the same warren of tunnels and structures where Hamas hid its captives. The weapon came home before he did.
Since October 7, the Israeli defense establishment has pursued a deliberate policy of hunting the specific Hamas operatives it ties to the massacre and the abductions — not only senior political and military leaders, but the field commanders and Nukhba cell heads who breached the fence, murdered civilians, and dragged hostages into Gaza. The Jandiya strike fits that pattern: a named battalion security chief, tied by the IDF to four hostages by name.
The terrorist who took part in abducting Cpt. Daniel Perez on October 7 and held Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz and Samer Talalka in captivity has been eliminated. Israel does not forget, and it does not stop pursuing those responsible for October 7.
What the operation does not do is undo any of it. Daniel Perez is still dead. Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz, and Samer Talalka are still dead — three of them killed by the army that was trying to save them, a fact Israel itself has documented and investigated rather than buried. Killing the man who held them changes the ledger of Hamas’s command structure. It does not change the grave count.
That is the honest frame for a story like this one. The strike is a fact. The abductions are a fact. The white flag in Shuja’iyya is a fact. An accountability project owes its readers all three — the enemy’s crimes and the tragedy that Israel acknowledges as its own — without flinching from either.
One Hamas battalion security chief held four Israeli hostages — Daniel Perez, Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz, and Samer Talalka. All four are dead. Nearly three years after October 7, Israel says it has killed the man who held them and paraded others for the cameras. It is accountability recorded, not grief resolved — and Israel is still counting the names.
