GAZA: The Zionist entity claimed Sunday its forces had killed the spokesman of Hamas’ armed wing in a strike on Gaza a day earlier, the latest fatality in the group’s senior ranks in the nearly two-year war. “Hamas terror spokesperson Abu Obeida was eliminated in Gaza,” Zionist Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a post on X, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier said he had been targeted in a strike.
On the ground, as the sun rose on Sunday, smoke drifted into the sky above Gaza City and residents came to inspect the damage at a tent, crumpled in a strike, with bloodstained blankets strewn in the rubble. Ashraf Abu Amsha, a displaced Palestinian sheltering in the area, said that “horror, fear, destruction, and fire erupted in all the tents.”
Zionist forces have been preparing for an offensive to seize Gaza City, the largest urban center in the Palestinian territory, intensifying bombardments in the area in recent days and warning of imminent evacuation.
Hamas meanwhile has not commented on the killing of Abu Obeida, whose real name according to the Zionist military is Hudaifa Al-Kahlut. Earlier on Sunday, Hamas confirmed the death of Mohammed Sinwar, the group’s presumed leader in Gaza, more than three months after the Zionist entity said it had killed him in an air strike. The Zionist offensive in Gaza has killed at least 63,459 Palestinians, most of them civilians.
Abu Obeida is a well-known figure to Palestinians and Zionists alike, close to Hamas’ top military leaders and in charge of delivering the group’s messages, often via video, for around two decades. He became one of the most known figures of the Hamas armed wing, Al-Qassam Brigades. Since the war began, he had issued dozens of televised speeches, always appearing in military fatigues and a red keffiyeh scarf to obscure his face, and published audio messages, press releases and social media posts.
Iman Rajab, who lives in the displacement camp near Gaza City that residents said was hit by the Zionist entity overnight, told AFP that “we are now afraid of the night and of sleeping in our tents”. “We pray to God for the war to end because we are very tired from the displacement, the fear and the hunger,” said Rajab.
The vast majority of the Gaza Strip’s more than two million residents have been displaced at least once during the war. The UN estimates that nearly a million people currently live in Gaza City and its surroundings, where famine has been declared. Gaza’s civil defense agency said Zionist strikes and gunfire across the territory on Sunday killed at least 24 people, 15 of whom near aid distribution sites.
West Bank annexation
The Zionist entity is considering annexation in the occupied West Bank as a possible response to France and other countries recognizing a Palestinian state. Extension of Zionist sovereignty to the West Bank – de facto annexation of land captured in the 1967 Middle East war – was on the agenda of Netanyahu’s security cabinet meeting late on Sunday that is expected to focus on the Gaza war, a member of the small circle of ministers said.
It is unclear where precisely any such measure would be applied and when, whether only in Zionist settlements or some of them, or in specific areas of the West Bank like the Jordan Valley and whether any concrete steps, which would likely entail a lengthy legislative process, would follow discussions. Any step toward annexation in the West Bank would likely draw widespread condemnation from the Palestinians, who seek the territory for a future state, as well as Arab and Western countries. It is unclear where US President Donald Trump stands on the matter.
A past pledge by Netanyahu to annex Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley was scrapped in 2020 in favor of normalizing ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in the so-called Abraham Accords brokered by Trump in his first term in office. The Zionist entity, which is facing mounting international criticism over the war in Gaza, is angered by pledges by France, Britain, Australia and Canada to formally recognize a Palestinian state at a summit during the UN General Assembly in September.
The United Nations’ highest court in 2024 said that the Zionist entity’s occupation of Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, and its settlements there are illegal and should be withdrawn as soon as possible. Its annexations of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights decades ago have not won international recognition.
‘Digital token’ for land
Meanwhile, a post-war plan for Gaza is circulating within Trump’s administration that would see the US administer the war-torn enclave for at least a decade, the temporary relocation of Gaza’s population and its rebuilding as a tourist resort and manufacturing hub, the Washington Post reported on Sunday. The Washington Post said that according to a 38-page prospectus it had seen, Gaza’s 2 million population would leave either through “voluntary” departures to another country or into restricted areas within the territory during reconstruction.
Reuters previously reported that there is a proposal to build large-scale camps called “Humanitarian Transit Areas” inside – and possibly outside – Gaza to house the Palestinian population. That plan carried the name of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, a controversial US- and Zionist-backed aid group.
Anyone who owns land would be offered a “digital token” in exchange for rights to redevelop their property, the Post reported, adding that each Palestinian who left would be provided with $5,000 in cash and subsidies to cover four years of rent. They would also be provided with a year of food, it added. The Post said the plan is called the “Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust, or GREAT Trust,” and was developed by the GHF.
GHF coordinates with the Zionist military and uses private US security and logistics companies to get food aid into Gaza. It is favored by the Trump administration and the Zionist entity to carry out humanitarian efforts in Gaza as opposed to the UN-led system which the Zionist entity says lets militants divert aid. In early August, the UN said more than 1,000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in Gaza since the GHF began operating in May 2025, most of them shot by Zionist forces operating near GHF sites.
On Feb 4, Trump first publicly said that the US should “take over” the war-battered enclave and rebuild it as “the Riviera of the Middle East” after resettling the Palestinian population elsewhere. Trump’s comments angered many Palestinians and humanitarian groups about the possible forced relocation from Gaza. – Agencies
