Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday confirmed that senior Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar was killed in an airstrike in Gaza. He made the announcement while speaking in the Israeli parliament, where he named Sinwar among other top Hamas leaders killed by Israeli forces.
Mohammed Sinwar was the brother of Yahya Sinwar, the powerful Hamas chief who helped plan the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Yahya Sinwar was killed last year in Rafah by Israeli forces. After his death, Mohammed Sinwar took over and was believed to be in charge of the remaining 58 Israeli hostages. Only around 21 of those hostages are thought to still be alive.
Israel had been tracking Mohammed Sinwar for months. On May 13, the Israeli military dropped several bombs on a tunnel located under a hospital in Gaza, targeting the hideout where Sinwar was believed to be hiding. Defense Minister Israel Katz later said that there were growing signs that Sinwar was killed in that strike.
At the time, Israeli military sources told The Jerusalem Post that they couldn’t officially confirm Sinwar’s death but said it was “very likely.” Reports said Sinwar may have been killed alongside about a dozen of his close aides, including Mohammed Shabanah, who was expected to become Hamas’s next military leader.
Shabanah was the head of the Rafah Brigade and one of two main people likely to succeed Sinwar. If both Sinwar and Shabanah are confirmed dead, that would leave only one of Hamas’s five original brigade commanders alive—Az-adin-al-Hadad, the Gaza City Brigade commander. This could make him the next military chief of Hamas.
