Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on Thursday confirmed that they have “eliminated” a Hamas commander who not only was involved in the Oct. 7 attacks – including the assault on the Reim bomb shelter where U.S. citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin was abducted – but who they also claimed “simultaneously” worked for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
Mohammad Abu Itiwi, a commander in Hamas’ elite Nukhba force, was killed by the Israeli Airforce on Wednesday, during a joint operation by the IDF and the Israeli Security Agency.
The controversial United Nations agency did not immediately return Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Mohammad Abu Itiwi during the October 7th Massacre. The Hamas Nukhba commander was involved in the murder and abduction of Israeli civilians on October 7th and, according to the IDF, was simultaneously employed by UNRWA. (IDF Spokesman’s Unit)
According to images supplied by the IDF, Abu Itiwi had been in the employ of the UNRWA since July 2022, and he was also photographed at the Reim bomb shelter near the Tribe of Nova music festival, where attendees ran for cover as Hamas terrorists attacked.Â
The Reim bomb shelter has become a symbol of the Oct. 7th massacre and was where Goldberg-Polin, his best friend Aner Shapira, and 25 others attempted to hide from Hamas attackers.Â
Abu Itiwi allegedly led the attack on the shelter, according to the IDF, and upon finding dozens hidden in the shelter on Route 232 in southern Israel, Hamas terrorists repeatedly pelted them with grenades.Â
Accounts of what happened next depict Shapira, 22 years old and an IDF soldier, attempting to calm the already 20-or-so people hiding in the shelter and promised to protect them.
“I’ll catch the grenades and throw them back – and if I miss any, you throw them back,” one account of the horrific event described for the Times of Israel.
Pictures are displayed on the walls of a bomb shelter in which, six months earlier, people sought refuge before being killed during the deadly October 7 attack on Israel by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas from Gaza, near Kibbutz Beeri in southern Israel, April 7, 2024. (Reuters/Amir Cohen)
Shapira managed to throw seven of the grenades back out before he was killed.Â
During the attack on the shelter, Goldberg-Polin’s arm was blown off from the elbow down. He was able to tie himself a tourniquet before he and others from the shelter were abducted by Hamas and taken into Gaza, where he was killed by Hamas terrorists 11 months later.Â
Twenty-seven people were in that shelter, 16 were killed, four were kidnapped, and seven survived.
UN CHIEF DEFENDS UNRWA, SAYS ONLY ‘A FEW ELEMENTS’ PARTICIPATED IN OCT. 7
Abu Itiwi reportedly directed and carried out numerous attacks on IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip.
Representatives from Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories – an agency under the Israeli Ministry of Defense – reached out to senior officials in the United Nations and the international community to request an urgent investigation into the involvement of UNRWA employees in the Oct. 7th Massacre.
Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg, parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, pictured on screen, speak during the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
The U.N. agency has previously been slapped with similar allegations involving ties to Hamas, though it has flatly rejected many of the claims.Â
In recent months, the U.N. has fired at least 12 staffers after finding they potentially had been involved in the Oct. 7 attacks.”