Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says its military has “eliminated” Hamas’s Gaza chief Mohammed Sinwar, one of its most wanted men and the brother of the group’s late leader Yahya Sinwar.
Mohammed Sinwar was reportedly the target of a massive Israeli strike on the courtyard and surrounding area of the European hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis on 13 May, which the Israeli military said destroyed Hamas “underground infrastructure”.
Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence agency said that 28 people were killed. Hamas itself has neither confirmed nor denied Sinwar’s death.
Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, was killed by Israeli troops last October.
Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response the unprecedented cross-border attack 600 days ago, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
At least 54,084 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Mohammed Sinwar, 49, joined Hamas shortly after it was founded in the late 1980s and become a member of the group’s military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
He rose through the ranks and by 2005 he was commander of the Khan Younis Brigade.
He was believed to have been one of the masterminds of a 2006 cross-border attack in which Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was seized. Sgt Shalit was released after five years in captivity in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, including Yahya Sinwar.
Mohammed Sinwar was also reported to have been close to Hamas’s late military chief Mohammed Deif and been involved in the planning of the 7 October 2023 attack.
Netanyahu announced that he was dead during a special debate in the Israeli parliament on Tuesday called by the opposition to address what it called “the government’s complete failure to achieve the war’s goals: the return of all the hostages and defeating Hamas”.
In response to the criticism, the Prime Minister listed Israel’s achievements.
“In 600 days of the ‘War of Revival’, we have indeed changed the face of the Middle East,” he said. “We drove the terrorists out of our territory, entered the Gaza Strip with force, eliminated tens of thousands of terrorists, eliminated Mohammed Deif, [political leader Ismail] Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Sinwar.”
