PM Netanyahu confirms death of Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday appeared to confirm the death of Hamas’ Gaza leader, Mohammed Sinwar.

“Many feared that we would not rise from October 7, but within just two days, I said that we were going to change the Middle East. We repelled the terrorists, we eliminated [Hamas leaders Mohammad] Deif, [Ismail] Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Sinwar,” Netanyahu stated during a debate in the Israeli Knesset. 

However, Israel Defense Forces has yet to confirm the death of Hamas’ top leader in Gaza. 

Last October, Mohammed Sinwar replaced his older brother Yahya Sinwar as the de facto leader of Hamas after he was killed in a firefight with Israeli soldiers in the southern Gazan town of Rafah. 

On May 13, the Israeli Air Force struck an underground Hamas command center below the European Hospital in southern Gaza. The Israeli military quickly confirmed that it had specifically targeted Mohammed Sinwar and other senior Hamas commanders who had convened. Sinwar had previously survived several Israeli assassination attempts. 

Following the strike, the Israeli military expressed growing optimism that Sinwar had been eliminated in the aerial strike. 

“Whoever was there is dead, there is no way out of it,” an unnamed Israeli military official assessed at the time. 

A few days later, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz told Israeli media outlets that “according to all the indications Mohammed Sinwar was eliminated.” 

Last Sunday, the Saudi news outlet Al Arabiya reported that Mohammed Sinwar’s body had been found in an underground tunnel. It also reported that the bodies of ten senior Hamas officials had been found including Mohammed Shabaneh who served as the commander of Hamas’ Rafah Brigade. Shabaneh, who was among the last surviving top Hamas commanders, was widely seen as a potential successor to Mohammed Sinwar.

Following the Saudi news report, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan claimed that Sinwar was still alive. 

“This is a false claim Israel makes to justify the bombing of a hospital. Our brothers in Gaza have assured us that Mohammed Sinwar is alive and still fighting the enemy firmly,” Hamdan said in an interview with the Iranian state media, Tehran Times. 

Last year, the terror group initially denied that Hamas’ late military commander Mohammed Deif had been eliminated in an Israeli aerial strike in Gaza. Hamas, which accused Israel of “lying,” eventually admitted early this year that Deif had been killed in the Israeli strike in 2024. 

While the Israeli military believes that Sinwar is probably dead, it has so far refrained from officially confirming his elimination. 

Sinwar was reportedly constantly surrounded by Israeli hostages as human shields. However, following the release of American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander earlier this month, the Israeli military and intelligence reportedly received actionable quality intelligence that Sinwar and other senior Hamas leaders would convene in an underground tunnel below the European Hospital in Gaza. After making sure that Sinwar was not surrounded with Israeli hostages, the Israeli government quickly greenlighted the aerial strike that appears to have eliminated most of Hamas’ remaining top leaders in Gaza. 

If Mohammed Sinwar and his deputy Mohammed Shabaneh were, indeed, eliminated in the IDF strike, Sinwar’s successor would likely be Izz al-Din al-Haddad.

Al-Haddad is the current commander of Hamas’ Gaza City Brigade and heads the terrorist group's military wing in the northern part of Gaza. More importantly, al-Haddad is believed to be the only surviving Hamas leader among the original pre-war five brigade commanders.