JERUSALEM (VINnews) — The Israel Defense Forces and the Israel Security Agency said Thursday that they killed the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees in the Khan Yunis area of the Gaza Strip in an airstrike the previous day.

Ramadan Muhammad Ashahada Diab headed the group in Khan Yunis, the military and security agency said in a joint statement. The strike used precision munitions after aerial surveillance to reduce the risk of civilian casualties, according to the announcement.

The Popular Resistance Committees was established in 2000 and was formerly affiliated with Fatah. It is now linked to Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the statement said. Members of the group took part in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, infiltrating Israeli territory, killing civilians and soldiers, and abducting people into Gaza.

Throughout the war, the organization carried out numerous attacks against Israeli troops in cooperation with Hamas, according to the IDF and Israel Security Agency. Diab advanced plans for attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians and worked to restore Hamas’s military capabilities, which Israeli forces described as a systematic violation of the ceasefire. He was targeted to remove the threat he posed.

Israeli forces under the Southern Command remain deployed in the area under the existing agreement and will continue operations to address threats, the statement said.