In the eleven years since Operation Protective Edge, the location of fallen IDF officer Lt. Hadar Goldin, who was killed and his body kidnapped in Rafah, remained one of the most closely guarded secrets held by Hamas’ military wing.
Even following the October 7 attack, this information was confined to a very small circle of senior Hamas figures.
According to a report by Army Radio, the circle of those privy to the secret included fewer than ten individuals, with only five remaining alive in recent months.
Among those in the know were top Hamas military leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Rafah Brigade Commander Mohammed Shabaneh, all of whom were eliminated over the course of the war.
During the Gaza campaign, the IDF deliberately refrained from targeting certain high-ranking terrorists, even when they were viable targets, out of concern that they possessed precise knowledge of Goldin’s burial location. These individuals were labeled “assets” by the IDF, and an operational directive was issued not to harm them in order to preserve the possibility of retrieving Goldin’s body.
It was also revealed that there were at least two separate opportunities to eliminate Shabaneh, but both times the strikes were aborted because others with critical information were nearby. Only when Shabaneh was found alone in a tunnel in Khan Yunis with Mohammed Sinwar was his elimination approved.
The newly revealed information sheds further light on the scope of intelligence efforts surrounding the return of hostages and MIAs: Not only did the IDF avoid direct harm to captives; it also consciously protecting high-ranking terrorists likely to hold vital information about them.