Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday gave final confirmation that Hamas chief Mohammed Sinwar was killed by an IDF airstrike on May 13.
Earlier in mid-May, Defense Minister Israel Katz told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that there were rising indications that Sinwar was dead.
Katz had made his statement just as IDF sources told The Jerusalem Post that it still did not recognize foreign reports that Sinwar’s body had been found with around a dozen of his aides, including the body of Sinwar’s likely successor, Rafah Brigade Chief Mohammed Shabanah. Sources had told the Post that the two top Hamas leaders were together, making it overwhelmingly likely that both are dead.
Despite the restraint in officially declaring them dead for the last two weeks, IDF sources had already told The Jerusalem Post early on that they were very likely dead, and Katz had also previously hinted the same in recent days.
On May 13, the IDF dropped a large number of bombs on a tunnel hideout under a hospital in Gaza in order to target Sinwar.
Mohammed Sinwar has led Hamas since his brother was killed
Mohammed Sinwar has been the leader of Hamas, and in particular, in control of the remaining 58 Israeli hostages (around 21 of which are believed to be alive) since mid-October 2024, when his brother, October 7 architect Yahya Sinwar, was killed by military forces in Rafah.
Shabanah would have been one of the two main candidates to succeed him as Hamas’s military leader.
This would leave only Gaza City Brigade commander Az-adin-al-Hadad alive from the pre-war original five Hamas brigade commanders, which would make him Hamas’s next military chief.
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