Hamas Gaza leader Mohammed Sinwar.Credit: Use according to Copyright Law Section 27a
The Palestinian militant group Hamas confirmed on Saturday the death of its Gaza military chief, Mohammad Sinwar, a few months after Israel said it killed him in a strike in May.
Hamas did not provide details on Sinwar’s death but published pictures of him along with other group leaders, describing them as “martyrs”.
The Hamas chief was the target of an IDF strike on the European Hospital in Khan Yunis in May. According to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza, at least 16 were killed and 70 were wounded in the attack.
Three days before Israel’s security establishment confirmed definitively that Sinwar was killed in the IDF strike, on the 600th day of the war in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the assassination while speaking in the Knesset.
“In the 600 days of revival, we changed the face of the Middle East,” he said. “We removed the terrorists from our territories, entered the Gaza Strip, and killed [Mohammed] Deif, [Ismail] Haniyeh, Yahya [Sinwar], and Mohammed Sinwar.”
Mohammed Sinwar, 50, was one of the leaders of the October 7 massacre, organized and initiated by his older brother Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas commander in the Gaza Strip.
After his brother was killed, he became the commander of Hamas’s military wing and the leader of the organization in the Strip. He shared the leadership of the movement within the Strip with the Iz al-Din Qassam Brigades, whose power base is centralized in the Strip’s north.
His confirmed death would leave his close associate Izz al-Din Haddad, who currently oversees operations in northern Gaza, in charge of Hamas’ armed wing across the whole of the enclave.
In recent years, Sinwar became a key figure associated with planning complex operations and logistical management. Unlike his brother Yahya, he was always considered a shadowy figure who rarely appeared in public or gave interviews to the Palestinian media.
Over the past twenty years, he has been the target of repeated Israeli assassination attempts. One of the most notable attempts occurred during Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021, when he was in a tunnel with Rafah Salama, the former commander of the Khan Yunis Brigade. The two were lightly wounded following a targeted air force strike.
