Israel confirms death of Hamas leader

Israel has officially announced that Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, has been killed.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Thursday that they were “investigating” whether Sinwar was among the Palestinian militants killed in a skirmish at an unspecified location. 

“Eliminated: Yahya Sinwar,” the IDF posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday evening.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz has also sent out a note to several of his colleagues around the world confirming Sinwar’s death, according to an official statement.

Sinwar, 62, has been the political leader of Hamas in Gaza since early 2017. He assumed full leadership of the group in August, after Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran.

Alongside Mohammed Deif, chief of the Ezzedeen al-Qassam Brigades (the military wing of Hamas), Sinwar has been widely regarded as the mastermind of the October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel that triggered the ongoing conflict. Israel claims to have killed Deif in an airstrike earlier this year, although the group has denied his death.

Unverified and extremely graphic images circulating online on Thursday purportedly show Sinwar’s body partially buried in debris. The body showed signs of multiple blast traumas, as well as an apparent gunshot wound to the head. According to media reports, the body was taken by the military to a laboratory for DNA testing.

Israel declared war on Hamas last year, after some 1,100 people were killed and roughly 250 kidnapped in the south of the country during the October 7 surprise attack. Heavy artillery and air strikes, as well as Israeli ground operations, have caused widespread destruction in Gaza in the year since. Some 42,000 people, primarily women and children, have been killed in the Palestinian enclave, according to local health authorities.