Israel has declared Yehya al-Sinwar, the leader of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, dead.
Al-Sinwar was killed by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Stip, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday evening, confirming earlier reports.
There was no immediate comment from the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The death of Sinwar represents a major boost to the Israeli military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the devastating war in the Palestinian enclave grinds on into a second year.
Israel has carried out relentless airstrikes and ground operations to try and reach Netanyahu’s goal of destroying Hamas.
In northern Gaza on Thursday, Israeli strikes killed 19 Palestinians including children at a school in the Jabalia camp that is sheltering displaced people, a Gaza health ministry official told Reuters.
Sinwar, who was named as Hamas’ overall leader following the assassination of political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, was believed to have been hiding in the warren of tunnels Hamas has built under Gaza over the past two decades.
Still, his death could dial up hostilities in the Middle East where the prospect of an even wider conflict has grown. Israel has launched a ground campaign in Lebanon over the past month and is now planning a response to an Oct. 1 missile attack carried out by Iran, ally of Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
But the death of the man who planned the attack last year in which fighters killed 1,200 people in Israel and captured more than 250 hostages could also help push forward stalled efforts to end the war he triggered, which has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians.
Israel’s Army Radio said the incident had occurred during a ground operation in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip during which Israeli troops killed three militants and took their bodies.
A ruthless enforcer once tasked with punishing Palestinians suspected of informing for Israel, Sinwar then made his name as a prison leader.
He emerged as a street hero from a 22-year Israeli sentence for masterminding the abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians. He then quickly rose to the top of the Hamas ranks. He was dedicated to eradicating Israel.
FALL BY THE SWORD
As news of Sinwar’s possible death swirled, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant posted a message on social media platform X with a biblical quotation.
“‘You will pursue your enemies and they will fall before you by the sword.’ – Leviticus 26. Our enemies cannot hide. We will pursue and eliminate them.”
The post contained pictures of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, assassinated in Beirut last month, and Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, killed in August, with a blank space for a third picture between them. All three were crossed out in red.
Al-Majd, a Hamas-linked website that usually publishes about security issues, urged Palestinians to wait for information about Sinwar from the group itself and not Israeli media outlets, which it said aimed to break their spirit.
Israel has killed several commanders of Hamas in Gaza as well as senior figures of Hezbollah in Lebanon, including Nasrallah, dealing heavy blows to its arch-foes.
WAR ON SEVERAL FRONTS
Earlier on Thursday, Israeli strikes on northern Gaza killed 19 Palestinians including children at a school in the Jabalia camp that is sheltering displaced people, a Gaza health ministry official told Reuters.
Israel’s military said dozens of militants were at the site and it conducted a precise strike on a meeting point for Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group inside the compound. Hamas denied it used the school.
Israel also launched a ground and air campaign in Lebanon at the start of the month to dismantle Hezbollah after a year during which the Iran-backed militant group fired across the border in support of Hamas in Gaza.
“War has become normal for us. We know that every 10 years Lebanon gets built, and every 10 years it gets destroyed again,” said Abdelnaser, a man displaced from Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold which Israel has repeatedly bombed.
Israeli operations in Lebanon have killed at least 2,350 people over the last year, according to the health ministry, and more than 1.2 million people have been displaced. Around 50 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed over the same period in northern Israel.
