CAIRO: A senior Hamas official advised Reuters on Saturday (Could 16) that the chief of the group’s army wing had died, a day after Israel mentioned that it had carried out airstrikes focusing on him.
Earlier, witnesses in Gaza Metropolis mentioned that mosques had introduced Izz al-Din al-Haddad’s “martyrdom”. He’s essentially the most senior Hamas official killed by Israel since an October US-backed ceasefire deal that was meant to halt combating in Gaza.
Hamas has not publicly confirmed Haddad’s loss of life.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned in a joint assertion together with his defence minister on Friday that Haddad had been focused, although they didn’t say if he had been killed.
Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz mentioned Haddad was an architect of the Oct 7, 2023 assaults launched by Hamas militants that precipitated Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza.
Haddad, who turned the group’s army chief in Gaza after Israel’s killing of Mohammad Sinwar in Could 2025, “was chargeable for the homicide, abduction, and hurt inflicted on 1000’s of Israeli civilians (and) troopers”, they mentioned.
Israel and Hamas stay deadlocked in oblique talks to advance US President Donald Trump’s post-war plan for Gaza that’s meant to finish greater than two years of combating.
Medics in Gaza on Friday mentioned that not less than seven folks, together with three ladies and a baby, have been killed and not less than 50 injured in air strikes focusing on an condo and a automobile. It isn’t clear if Haddad was one of many useless.
Israel has escalated its assaults in Gaza within the weeks since halting its joint bombing with the US in Iran, redirecting its hearth again on the ruined Palestinian territory the place the army says that Hamas fighters are tightening their grip.
