Israel has targeted bases used by Hamas’ commando force Nukhba, which it says led the incursion into southern Israel and carried out the first wave of the massacre.

Nukhba, which means elite, is the special forces unit within the Hamas military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, in the Gaza Strip.

Little is known about the group beyond its status as having a high level of training and reports from 2017 which said a number of its men abandoned its ranks to join the Islamic State.

“Overnight, the IAF conducted a wave of strikes targeting the Nukhba elite forces of the Hamas terrorist organisation, by striking operational command centres used by operatives who infiltrated the communities surrounding the Gaza Strip last Saturday,” an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman said.

Video footage released by the IDF showed a barracks-like structure being engulfed in a massive explosion.

Israel has vowed to kill “every single member” of Nukhba, which may also be heavily involved in the defence of the Gaza Strip once an Israeli ground invasion begins.

Experts familiar with Palestinian terror groups said Nukhba had similar levels of training to Hizbollah’s Radwan forces, which specialise in covert attacks on northern Israel at the border.

“They’re commandos, same as the Radwan forces in Lebanon. They’re the same type of elite group and they got the assignment to break first and clear the way for the forces,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a senior Middle East analyst at the Atlantic Council.

According to the FDD, a pro-Israel think tank in Washington, Nukhba troops have also carried the coffins of senior Hamas members in a sign of their high ranking within the organisation.

Owing to its elite status, Nukhba likely had specific training on how to infiltrate the small towns and kibbutzim in the border region. They may have been used to breach the towns that were thought to be the most well defended, such as Sderot.

Joe Truzman, a senior analyst at the FDD, posted footage on social media of what he suspected was a scene of Nukhba forces in battle with Israeli soldiers. The footage showed heavy gunfire but the figures firing rifles were difficult to identify.

A 2017 report in the Independent said that growing numbers of Nukhba gunmen had at that time been defecting from Hamas to Islamic State in the neighbouring Sinai region. This included specialists in anti-tank missile firing and bomb making.

On Thursday, the IDF posted images on Twitter of Islamic State flags which it said were found at the scene of massacres in towns in southern Israel.

Islamic State still has a presence in Sinai as of 2023, but its numbers have been reduced after heavy fighting with the Egyptian army and it is considered to be largely inactive.

An image from 2014 circulated by pro-Hamas channels showed the faces of two Nukhba members killed during the 2014 Gaza war.

It was unclear on Thursday whether any Nukhba members had been killed in the IDF strike on its bases.

Giora Eiland, a retired Israeli general, said he had doubts that many of the air strikes on Gaza to date had been effective as so many commanders and other terrorists were hiding in tunnels.

Hamas has constructed a vast network of tunnels beneath the Gaza Strip, with some running for dozens of kilometres.

“I am afraid the Israeli leadership is too impressed by the number of the strikes and destruction of the buildings, as if this is something effective - it is not effective, it is very limited,” he said.