Editor’s note: This column is based on a detailed investigative report published by YnetNews, which documented the work of a covert Israeli Military Intelligence unit tracking and neutralising those responsible for the October 7 attacks. The column reflects the reporting, testimonies, and operational descriptions contained in that report, reshaped here as analysis and commentary.
The video of Avinatan Or and Noa Argamani being torn apart during the Hamas assault on October 7 became one of the most haunting images of that day. In a few seconds of footage, terror, helplessness, and brutality were frozen in time: Argamani dragged away on a motorcycle, stretching her arm towards Or as he was marched off, bruised and bloodied, by armed men exultant in their violence. For many Israelis, and for viewers around the world, that moment came to symbolise not just individual suffering but the scale of the horror that unfolded across southern Israel. What was not visible in that footage, however, was that the men responsible for that moment had already set in motion a process that would follow them long after the cameras were turned off.
Behind the scenes, a small and highly secretive unit within Israeli Military Intelligence was tasked with a mission that went beyond immediate battlefield objectives. Known as NILI, the unit was formed to identify, track, and ultimately neutralise every individual who crossed into Israel on October 7 and took part in murder, abduction, rape, looting, or arson. Operating out of a modest room at Southern Command, its members began assembling what would become a vast and evolving target bank. Their mandate was not vengeance, but accountability, and their work was shaped by a conviction that none of the perpetrators should be allowed to disappear into anonymity.
One of the earliest names on their list was Ahmed Shaer, the man seen in the footage pushing Avinatan Or away and pulling him deeper into captivity. Shaer quickly understood that he was a marked man and vanished into the shadows of Gaza. For months, he barely left his hiding place, avoided communication, and erased traces of his routine. Tracking him became a painstaking exercise in patience and persistence, requiring the fusion of intelligence from multiple sources and an almost forensic attention to detail. It took nearly ten months before analysts were able to narrow his location down to a specific building and eventually to the room where he slept.
The operation to neutralise Shaer illustrated the precision and restraint that define NILI’s work. On the night of the strike, intelligence officers, analysts, Air Force personnel, and security representatives gathered in a command room where silence mattered as much as urgency. Months of data had to be distilled into minutes. Every detail of the target’s routine, environment, and location was scrutinised again before authorisation was given. When the missile finally struck, hitting the exact window linked to Shaer, the room fell into a tense waiting period. Confirmation did not come immediately. Only days later, when eulogies began appearing online, did the analysts allow themselves to acknowledge that their work had succeeded.
That moment of confirmation carried emotional weight far beyond professional satisfaction. By then, Noa Argamani had returned home, while Avinatan Or remained in captivity. For those who had spent months immersed in their story, the neutralisation of one of their abductors represented a form of delayed justice, a small measure of closure in a process defined by uncertainty and loss. This notion of closure, repeatedly emphasised by members of NILI, lies at the heart of their motivation. They speak not of revenge, but of responsibility, of a duty owed to victims and their families to ensure that the perpetrators cannot repeat their actions or become symbols for others to follow.
As the war progressed, NILI’s scope expanded rapidly. What began as a focused effort around a handful of cases grew into a database of thousands of names. The unit prioritised those directly involved in killings and abductions, ranking them above individuals whose only known act was crossing the border. This hierarchy reflected a moral calculus shaped by public obligation as much as operational necessity. In some cases, investigators found themselves working on targets with deeply personal resonance. One senior analyst spent months tracking Wael Matria, a platoon commander involved in the abduction of surveillance soldiers from the Nahal Oz base, without initially revealing that she knew one of the abducted soldiers from school.
The process of building a case against a target is slow, meticulous, and psychologically demanding. Investigators reconstruct lives in granular detail, learning where a person sleeps, shops, prays, and whom they trust. They sift through hours of video posted by the attackers themselves, cross-reference faces using biometric software, and corroborate every claim through multiple channels. Intelligence flows in from interrogations, intercepted communications, seized devices, and debriefings of returning hostages. Each fragment adds another piece to a puzzle that may take weeks, months, or even years to complete.
Strikes, when they occur, are governed by strict criteria. Analysts must be certain not only of the target’s identity but also of their isolation from civilians at the moment of impact. Opportunities are often missed because the risk to non-combatants is too high. Investigators describe waiting for hours, sometimes days, for a moment when a target separates from others, steps into an empty space, or returns to a location where they can be confirmed alone. In one case, a man connected to a returned hostage was struck only after he wandered away from a crowded area into a restroom, the only moment when certainty and safety aligned.
The emotional toll of this work is evident in the way analysts describe their lives outside the operations room. Many speak of carrying images and details with them long after their shifts end, replaying scenarios in their minds while trying to sleep. Some deliberately shield junior colleagues from the most graphic footage, taking on the burden themselves. Yet there is also a sense of meaning that sustains them, often crystallised in unexpected moments. One officer recalled sitting in a football stadium and recognising a former hostage a few rows away, knowing that the men responsible for his captivity had been neutralised, and wrestling with whether that knowledge should ever be shared.
Publication of strikes is carefully managed, often delayed until hostages connected to a case have returned. The announcements are intentionally impersonal, attributed simply to the IDF, with no mention of the individuals who spent months assembling the intelligence. For the families of victims and hostages, these brief notices are often the only signal that someone, somewhere, has worked to settle the account. Analysts describe seeing social media posts from former captives reacting to such news as one of the rare moments when the human impact of their work becomes visible.
The broader strategic rationale behind NILI’s mission extends beyond individual cases. Intelligence officers argue that those who participated in October 7 acquired experience, confidence, and status that make them uniquely dangerous. Many are celebrated within their communities, promoted within militant hierarchies, and positioned to lead future attacks. Eliminating them is seen as both a preventive security measure and a way of disrupting the myth that such actions carry no lasting consequences. In this view, accountability is not backward-looking but forward-facing, aimed at deterring repetition by removing those most capable of orchestrating it.
Ceasefires and pauses in fighting have not diminished the unit’s sense of urgency. Instead, they have shifted its focus towards maintenance and expansion of the target bank, ensuring that when operations resume, intelligence is ready. Members speak with quiet certainty about continuity, about being replaced one day by others who will carry on the same work. The mission, they insist, does not end with them. What endures is the promise that anyone who took part in the atrocities of October 7 will be pursued, identified, and, when the moment comes, held to account.
In the end, the story of NILI is not one of dramatic raids or public triumphs, but of sustained, invisible labour carried out in the shadows of a national trauma. It is a reminder that modern warfare is fought not only on battlefields but in databases, surveillance feeds, and late-night analysis sessions. For those involved, the measure of success is not recognition, but the quiet knowledge that a circle has been closed, a threat removed, and a message sent: that even amid chaos and devastation, memory persists, and accountability follows.
