September 2026.

Farah Ahmad Hamed was a senior commander and fighter in the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike.
According to statements from the group, he was a member of the Military Council of the al-Qassam Brigades in the West Bank. According to the Times of Israel and Israeli security agencies, he was a key figure in the "West Bank Headquarters," a specialized unit dedicated to recruiting operatives, funding, and directing terrorist attacks within the West Bank from afar.

During the Second Intifada, 2003, Hamed was an integral member of Hamas’s notorious "Silwad cell".
He orchestrated and participated in multiple deadly shooting attacks in the Binyamin region of the West Bank.

He was directly tied to the August 2003 shooting that killed Shuli Har-Melech (the husband of future Israeli Knesset Member Limor Son Har-Melech).
He also took part in an October 2003 ambush in Ein Yabrud that killed three IDF soldiers.
He was captured by Israeli forces in 2003 and sentenced to seven life terms for his role in the attacks. However, after serving eight years, he was released in 2011 as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange (referred to by Palestinian outlets as the Wafa al-Ahrar deal).
As a condition of his release, he was exiled to the Gaza Strip, where he immediately resumed his operations within Hamas.