Trump Angry with Israel for IDF Killing Arch-Terrorist Ra’ad Sa’ad

Peloni:  Since when is fighting terrorism out of season?  America has a poor appetite for eliminating those who kill their citizens.  This is why so many members of Hezbollah who were eliminated by Israel over the past two years had outstanding warrants for their involvement in the 1982 Beirut Bombing which killed 241 Americans back in 1983.  Barbarians such as these should not be allowed to grow old, and if they do grow old, they should not be allowed to die from old age.  I recall Trump’s first term was marked for calls of an end to tolerating state sponsored terrorism.  It appears his second term is to be marked for a reversal of this standard.  What changed?

By Hugh Fitzgerald | Dec 18, 2025

Screengrab via Youtube

The other day, the IDF killed Ra’ad Sa’ad, one of the chief architects of the atrocities that Hamas carried out on October 7, 2023, and the last of the senior planners still alive. He was deeply involved with rearming Hamas in violation of the Trump Peace Plan. Ever since the ceasefire went into effect, Hamas has been intermittently attacking Israeli targets. Most recently, an IED laid by Hamas operatives wounded two IDF soldiers. This was the proximate cause for the IDF to take out Sa’ad, which it did with a pinpoint strike that hit only the car he was riding in, killing him and two of his guards, but did no other damage.

More on the White House reaction to the killing of Ra’ad Sa’ad can be found here: “Trump looking into whether Israel violated ceasefire by killing Hamas leader,” Jerusalem Post, December 15, 2025:

US President Donald Trump on Monday said his administration was looking into whether Israel violated the Gaza ceasefire by killing a Hamas leader on Saturday.

Earlier, two American sources told Axios that the White House had sent a message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, expressing Washington’s anger over the assassination of senior Hamas official Sa’ad Ra’ad, which it described as an Israeli violation of the Gaza ceasefire agreement.

It is Hamas that has been steadily violating the ceasefire; Israel has only been responding to those violations, including the latest one — the planting of an IED that wounded two IDF soldiers. If Israel were not to respond, Hamas would only increase its attacks. By responding with attacks of its own, Israel is only trying to enforce the ceasefire. The American anger with Israel for doing this is outrageous.

Sa’ad, the former deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing and one of the architects of Hamas’s October 7 attacks, was killed in an Israeli strike over the weekend.

It was previously confirmed that Jerusalem did not inform Washington of the attack in advance of the strike. Israel denied accusations it violated the ceasefire, instead asserting that Hamas broke the agreement by planning an explosive attack which wounded two soldiers.

Israel is not a client state of the US; it is under no obligation to keep Washington informed of its every military move, and plans for an impending assassination need for obvious reasons to be kept close to the vest. The IDF may well have feared that someone in the Trump administration could warn Ra’ad Sa’ad of an impending attack. With the Trump administration, anything — including such a betrayal of an ally — is possible.

The White House is also reported to have characterized the killing of Ra’ad Sa’ad as “a provocation to the Arabs.” A provocation? Anything Israel does to defend itself is a “provocation” to the Arabs. Every time Mossad or the IDF assassinates a Hamas or Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad commander, or bombs a weapons depot, or hits a missile-launching site, it is committing what Arabs will regard as a “provocation.” Israel’s very existence constitutes a “provocation” to most Arabs.

“The killing of Ra’ad Sa’ad, an arch-terrorist who worked day in and day out to violate the agreement and renew the fighting, was carried out in response to these violations and was intended to ensure the continuation of the ceasefire,” an Israeli official told Axios….

It is Hamas that has repeatedly violated the ceasefire, not just by planting an IED the other day that wounded two IDF soldiers, but in a dozen previous attacks. These include the following, in the first five days of November alone:

• On November 1, Hamas handed over three bodies of those it claimed to be deceased hostages. However, none of the three sets of remains belonged to any of the hostages, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
• On November 2, the IDF said it identified a terrorist who had crossed the Yellow Line and was approaching Israeli troops in northern Gaza. The IDF said that “following the identification, and in order to remove the threat to the troops, the [Israeli Air Force] struck the terrorist.”
• A nearly identical incident happened on November 3. However, this time, multiple individuals crossed the Yellow Line “and advanced toward IDF troops in southern Gaza, posing an immediate threat to them,” according to the IDF, which added that Israeli troops fired on them “to remove the threat to the troops.”
• Also on November 3, Israel assessed that approximately 200 Hamas fighters were located in tunnels within Israeli-controlled areas of southern Gaza, including Rafah. Hamas terrorists had been required to withdraw from the area immediately upon the ceasefire’s implementation.
• On November 4, the IDF stated that a terrorist once again crossed the Yellow Line and approached Israeli troops. According to the IDF, “the terrorist was eliminated.”
• On November 5, in two separate instances, the IDF reported that “two terrorists were identified crossing the yellow line and advancing toward IDF troops in central Gaza.” The IDF eliminated the individuals.

Prime Minister Netanyahu needs no lectures from Washington about this killing of Ra’ad Sa’ad. Trump’s manic fixation on enlarging the Abraham Accords, even if it means holding Israel back from defending itself, is madness. For defending itself is all that Israel did with the targeted killing of Ra’ad Sa’ad. It removed a dangerous enemy, one of the masterminds of the October 7 attacks, who was in the midst of rebuilding Hamas so that it might be able to carry out such attacks again.

“The US doesn’t ask Netanyahu to compromise Israel’s security. We ask him not to take steps that are perceived in the Arab world as provocations,” an American official told Axios.

Killing Ra’ad Sa’ad was certainly a defensive act, as described in the Babylonian Talmud: “If someone is coming to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” To be angry with Israel for this act of self-defense is unacceptable. Of course, some Arabs will think this is a “provocation,” just as they think that every time the IDF or Mossad assassinates a leader of Hamas, Hezbollah, or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, this is a “provocation.” In fact, for most Arabs and Muslims, the very existence of Israel is a “provocation.”

Israel is still engaged in a seven-front war, and both Hamas and Hezbollah are violating their respective ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon. Israel does not need to be lectured or hectored by the United States on what it does to defend itself. When Ra’ad Sa’ad was killed, the Americans ought to have issued the following statement:

“We congratulate Israel on removing Ra’ad Sa’ad, one of the chief architects of the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas. Sa’ad was in the midst of helping Hamas to rearm, in direct violation of the ceasefire agreement, and the IDF simply carried out, in a precision operation, an act that makes not only Israel, but the world, a safer place.”