(JNS) Hamas in Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar and his entire command team “are in our sights,” Israel Defense Forces international spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht told journalists on Saturday.

Hecht spoke as the Israel Air Force killed Merad Abu Merad, Hamas’s head of aerial activity, in Gaza City, who it said was responsible for directing terrorists during the Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis in the western Negev. 

The Israel Air Force also struck dozens of members and facilities of Hamas’s Nuhba elite terrorist commando unit that were involved in the assault on the south, in which at least 1,300 Israelis were murdered and over 130 kidnapped to the Strip, including young children and the elderly.

The IDF Rabbinate Base at Camp Shura, south of Tel Aviv, is processing enormous numbers of bodies as the identification process continues from last Saturday’s massacre, Hecht said. “These are things no one should have to see or smell,” he stated. “This is a massacre that Israel will never forget.”

Israel released images on Friday of Hamas terrorists handling babies in the south after murdering their parents. 

“Yahya Sinwar is the face of evil. He is the mastermind behind this, like [Osama] bin Laden was. He built his career on murdering Palestinians when he understood they were collaborators. That’s how he became known as the butcher of Khan Younis [in southern Gaza],” said Hecht. 

“That man and his whole team are in our sights. We will get to that man,” he said, adding, “This could be [a] long [campaign].”

The IDF has been calling all Gazans to evacuate the north of the Strip, and showing them two evacuation corridors. It said two evacuation corridors would be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday.

Hamas has ordered Gazan civilians to ignore Israel’s evacuation calls. The IDF has observed Hamas vehicles driving around Gaza as the terrorist regime tries to stop civilians from leaving for safety, in order to keep them as mass human shields near their terrorist bases. 

“Hamas is responsible for the conditions of the civilians. We recommend that people don’t delay. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans are heading south but Hamas is stopping many of them,” said Hecht. 

Hours after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,400 people and wounding thousands, the Palestinian Authority released a statement blaming Israel for the attacks. Five days later, P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned violence against civilians “on both sides.”

On Oct. 15, reportedly under pressure from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Abbas released a statement noting that “Hamas’s policy and actions do not represent the Palestinian people.” It was a statement that distanced the P.A. “from Hamas’s atrocities but was not even close to a condemnation,” noted Palestinian Media Watch. 

Hours later, Abbas amended the statement, removing the word “Hamas” and instead referred to “any other organization.”

“Even that mild distancing was too much for the P.A.,” Palestinian Media Watch stated.

“The P.A. had to decide whether to be true to its ideology of supporting and rewarding the murder of Israelis or to give into international pressure and condemn the worst atrocities against the Jews since the Holocaust,” said Itamar Marcus, PMW founder and director. “This time Abbas wavered, but in the end, remained true to P.A. ideology: The murder of Israelis by Palestinians is not to be condemned.”

Mahmoud Abbas. Credit: Comunicazione della Presidenza della Repubblica via Wikimedia Commons.