Gabriel Epstein Profile picture
Senior Policy Associate @IsraelPolicy4m. Former Research Assistant @WashInstitute. Graduate @SAISHopkins.
Mar 4 6 tweets 4 min read
While the U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict dominated the news, PIJ released another list of 20 commanders killed during the war in Gaza on March 1. They include the husband of a prominent journalist and an ICU nurse, and 17/20 can be found on the Gaza Health Ministry list. 🧵 Image
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Munir Attia Darwish al-Adini (ID#: 800137549, age 40) was a commander in PIJ’s military manufacturing unit. Both he and his wife, prominent Palestinian journalist Wafa Ali Abdrabbo al-Adini (ID#: 801342437, age 38), along with two of their children, were killed in a September 2024 airstrike. This thread has more details:

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Feb 26 9 tweets 6 min read
Today, Palestinian Islamic Jihad announced 20 more commanders killed in Gaza, including journalists, the head of therapeutic nutrition at Nasser Hospital, and other figures. A few highlights below and a summary: 🧵 Image Ayman Suleiman Abu Tayr (ID#: 801367459, age 39), a commander in PIJ’s Central Operations Unit, was also a licensed nurse and the head of Nasser Hospital’s Therapeutic Nutrition Unit. He was killed in a June 2025 airstrike. Image
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Feb 24 11 tweets 9 min read
UPDATING THREAD: Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) has released a sizable list of high-ranking commanders killed during the war, particularly second-in-commands of many key units. Notable IDs, including journalists, doctors, and others below.🧵 Image
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Mahdi Hassan Mohammed al-Mamlouk (ID#: 801389321, 38) was the deputy head of PIJ's central communications unit as well as a broadcast engineer for PIJ's satellite channel, al-Quds al-Youm TV. He was killed in a Nov 2024 airstrike, and is listed by the CPJ and IFJ (though not the Hamas-run GMO) as a journalist.Image
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Feb 24 6 tweets 5 min read
Mohammed Akram Abdullah al-Kafarna (40), head of the Palestinian Nursing Association and nursing supervisor at Kamal al-Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, was a Hamas militant killed in the Beit Hanoun area in September 2025. 🧵 Image
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al-Kafarna's death was announced in late September 2025 by a major Hamas media Telegram channel, among a set of 13 militants killed the north Gaza neighborhood following heavy IDF operations. His picture appears at 00:34 in the video below. Image

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Feb 19 26 tweets 13 min read
A new Gaza death toll list provided to the Israeli newspaper @haaretz by the Hamas-run Gaza MOH has been released (the 13th iteration), containing 68,820 non-duplicate entries and covering up to November 10, 2025. Very long analysis of data quality, demographics, and unknowns: Image Like all published MOH lists, the November list does not distinguish between civilians and combatants and attributes all listed deaths uniformly to Israeli action. Nor does it include dates of death (no list has) or collection methodology (some earlier iterations did).
Feb 14 5 tweets 3 min read
New posts on popular Gazan militant obituary channels show that the police director of the Kerem Shalom crossing, Bassem Salah Mohammed Ghubn, was a longstanding member of Hamas and a lifelong friend of Alaa al-Hadidi, supply chief in Hamas' manufacturing headquarters. 🧵 Image Ghubn and Hadidi are described as lifelong friends who both joined the "military wing" of Hamas in the Second Intifada, then took on command roles in different parts of the group. Ghubn later became a police colonel and was appointed head of the Kerem Shalom crossing. Image
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Feb 10 4 tweets 2 min read
Major find by @MiddleEastBuka -- identifying Ibrahim Zaanin as the terrorist who murdered Sapir Bilmes (24) and Karin Vernikov (22) outside Kibbutz Alumim on October 7. Zaanin was killed in an airstrike yesterday in Gaza City (details below).
Feb 9 6 tweets 4 min read
Today's strike on an apartment in the al-Nasr neighborhood of west Gaza City killed at least two militants from Hamas' Beit Hanoun Battalion: Ibrahim Farid Shaaban Zaanin and Ahmed Kamal Swailam, who are described as "heroic mujahideen". 🧵 Image
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Ibrahim Zaanin is described repeatedly as a mujahid and a "hunter of vehicles", making it likely he was part of an RPG/anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) team. Image
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Feb 8 10 tweets 6 min read
This claim, which is about a new Hamas-run Ministry of Social Development program is untrue on multiple levels -- on figures, characterization, and comparison with the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry's death toll. Short 🧵 to explain: Last week, the Hamas-run Ministry of Social Development (MOSD) announced a program ("We are your support") to provide NIS 500 (~$160) to widows of Gazans killed in the war. Funding for this program is allegedly money confiscated from merchants for "criminal" activities post-ceasefire.Image
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Feb 3 4 tweets 4 min read
Mahmoud Essam Ibrahim Wadi, killed in an Israeli drone strike on December 2, 2025, was mourned as a Gazan photojournalist and drone photographer for several local and international outlets. However, pictures of his gravestone identify him as a "mujahid" (fighter). 🧵 Image
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Wadi appears on three major lists of media workers killed in Gaza: the Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Federation of Journalists, and the Hamas-run Government Media Office. Video from his funeral also shows a press jacket placed over his body. Image
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Jan 28 16 tweets 6 min read
The picture on the PA's reported "pay-to-slay" reform is more confusing than the article indicates. Without an actual U.S. audit to fully assess the new PNEEI need-based aid system, ensure the old system is completely gone, and prevent workarounds, there won't be any clarity. 🧵 The PA published the decree nominally cancelling pay-to-slay in Feb 2025 and invited the U.S. to audit in April, but laws to restructure the new body (PNEEI) weren't passed until July, and the new need-based beneficiary list wasn't set until even later. israelpolicyforum.org/making-the-pa-…
Jan 27 9 tweets 5 min read
An IDF strike in the Sudaniya area of northern Gaza on July 28, 2025, was initially reported to have killed 10 people conducting “aid security”. The five people ID’d at the time of the strike: a DFLP commander and four al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades operatives. Details in 🧵: Image
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Mohammed Hassan Nimr Abu Ali (ID#: 800405425, age 40) was part of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s Omar al-Qassam Brigades command in west Gaza City. His death was announced by the group almost immediately.
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Jan 9 15 tweets 6 min read
A new iteration of the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry’s casualties dashboard has been published, updated through the end of 2025. Short analysis 🧵: Image The current dashboard reports 71,400 deaths, while the November 10 iteration reported 68,832, with demographics in the table below (L). Of the 2,568 added deaths (many added via family reports from earlier in the war), roughly 54% are men 18-59 (R). Image
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Jan 2 4 tweets 4 min read
A Military Medical Services Nurse in Gaza and a Hamas fighter: Tariq Jamal Jamil Abu al-Atta (ID #: 800599920) was killed in a Mar 2024 airstrike along with his wife and children. While media/NGOs ID'd him as a civilian, multiple martyr's channels identify him as a combatant. 🧵 Image
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Abu al-Atta is listed in the Healthcare Workers Watch list of medical workers killed in Gaza (155th under nurses) and ID'd by the Institute for Palestine Studies as a Military Medical Services Nurse at a Deir al-Balah clinic. healthcareworkerswatch.org/wp-content/upl…Image
Dec 23, 2025 7 tweets 4 min read
A 12-year old "Little Mujahideen" for Gaza's Mujahideen Brigades: Suhaib Talal Nafiz al-Jundia (ID#: 432315653). Killed in December 2024, he was identified today both by his father and on a popular militant obituary page. Image In pictures posted by two of his father's Facebook accounts, al-Jundia appears with weapons and a vest bearing the Mujahideen Brigades logo (see the BBC image for comparison). The Brigades are part of the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, the 4th-largest terror group in Gaza. Image
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Nov 11, 2025 16 tweets 5 min read
One month since the Gaza ceasefire went into effect, the death toll reported by the Hamas-run Health Ministry has increased by 1,968 to 69,182. What accounts for the increase, and what has the past month revealed about the death toll? 5 main takeaways: 1. Little of the post-ceasefire increase in the death toll comes from new deaths (13%). Instead, it comes from the bulk addition of deaths reported to the Health Ministry by families (61%), through a form open since Jan 2024, and recovery of previously unreported bodies (26%). Image
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Oct 20, 2025 20 tweets 11 min read
Without comment on the rest, this part misses a key point: while the ceasefire is having an impact, WFP’s newfound success in getting aid to its warehouses came more than a week earlier, when WFP began to send aid via Kissufim crossing and may have begun using security. Long🧵 Image WFP aid to Gaza was nearly uniformly looted from the time aid resumed on May 19 to the end of September. By a certain point, WFP aid being looted was the looting problem — Egypt/Jordan/UAE, other U.N. agencies, NGOs, and merchants adapted, but WFP did not. Image
Oct 18, 2025 6 tweets 2 min read
According to “The Guardian" channel, associated with Hamas, the group has launched its efforts to: 1) collect dud Israeli munitions and left-behind equipment (L), and 2) recover any of its own lost or stolen "resistance weapons" (R). Further consolidation of power and arms. Image
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There are legitimate reasons to collect unexploded ordnance (UXO) and other military equipment — it is dangerous to civilians and inhibits search-and-rescue and reconstruction. But Hamas has long repurposed UXO into IEDs, and wants a near-monopoly on weapons inside Gaza.
Oct 13, 2025 7 tweets 3 min read
The al-Majayda clan, which clashed with Hamas last week, has announced it will disarm and hand weapons over to Hamas following repeated assaults and threats against them. Hamas' bloody fight with the Dughmush clan and public executions of several members likely played a role. Image Predictions of civil war in Gaza are overblown -- Hamas is by far the most powerful and coordinated armed actor, while those it is clashing with are usually limited in number and often geographically isolated. Clans see no point fighting Hamas if it is likely to stay in power.
Aug 29, 2025 12 tweets 5 min read
For those wondering, this is not U.N. aid. It is a warehouse controlled by the Egyptian Committee (ERC), which operates outside the U.N. 2720 system and moves/distributes aid on its own. This is one of three major state-led Gaza aid efforts — Egyptian, Emirati, and Jordanian. 🧵 A broader view of this yard is here, six seconds into an Egyptian Committee promotional video from Aug 26. The picture below shows a view inside the warehouse. facebook.com/61570901403004…Image
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Aug 26, 2025 19 tweets 9 min read
The U.N.’s Gaza aid channel is plagued by near-ubiquitous looting of food aid. But UNICEF has successfully delivered 380 tons of food in the last two weeks, while WFP and WCK have delivered none. The apparent key to UNICEF’s success? Hiring security. 🧵 Image Non-food aid gets through at much higher rates than food, but even there UNICEF is particularly successful. Since the start of August, 82.1% of UNICEF aid has arrived successfully, at a higher rate than the Red Cross (11% successful) and volume than any aid org except WFP/WCK. Image