Hamas chief Mohammed Sinwar 'eliminated' by Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu says
Mohammed Sinwar was the brother of former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel who was killed last year.
Israel has killed Mohammed Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told lawmakers, following Israeli media reports that he had been targeted in a recent airstrike on a hospital in the Strip.One of Israel's most wanted targets, Sinwar is believed to be Hamas' top military leader in Gaza. He is the brother of Yahya Sinwar, the late Hamas chief and one of the masterminds of the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, who was killed by the IDF last year. Speaking to Israel's parliament on Wednesday, Netanyahu included Sinwar in a list of Hamas leaders killed in Israeli airstrikes."We eliminated Mohammed Sinwar," Netanyahu told a parliamentary plenary session. Hamas has not publicly commented on the claim. Israeli media reported earlier this month that Sinwar was a target of a strike on a hospital in Khan Younis on 13 May. The army did not comment at the time beyond saying it had targeted a Hamas "command and control centre" which it said was located beneath the European Hospital.Netanyahu's comments come after Gaza's health ministry said that at least one Palestinian was killed and 48 wounded when gunshots were fired on a crowd that overran a new aid distribution site set up by an Israeli and US-backed foundation. Separately on Wednesday, the Israeli army said in a statement that it had struck "dozens of targets throughout the Gaza Strip" over the past 48 hours, including weapon storage facilities and anti-tank missile posts. Israel has vowed to seize control of Gaza and fight until Hamas is destroyed or disarmed and exiled, and until the militant group returns the remaining 58 hostages seized in the incursion that sparked the war. Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people in the 2023 assault.A subsequent Israeli offensive has to date killed at least 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry whose figures do not distinguish between fighters and civilians.