Israel says it has confirmed the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar – after pictures emerged purporting to show his body buried in rubble.
The 62-year-old, who has led Hamas within Gaza since 2017, is believed to be the mastermind of the 7 October 2023 attacks.
Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz made the claim following DNA tests and other checks on a body found in Gaza.
He said officials could now confirm Sinwar was “killed today by IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] soldiers”.
Mr Katz added that his death was a “great military and moral achievement for Israel”.
“The elimination of Sinwar creates an opportunity for the immediate release of the hostages and a potential change that could lead to a new reality in Gaza – without Hamas and without Iranian control.”
It comes after photographs circulated online earlier claimed to show Sinwar’s dead body.
The images have not been independently verified.
If he has died as claimed, it would mean Israel has eliminated its main target since it began strikes and ground invasions in Gaza in response to the Hamas incursion last year.
The Israeli military said in a statement earlier today that officials were checking the possibility that Sinwar had died.
It added: “During IDF operations in Gaza, three terrorists were eliminated…
“In the building where the terrorists were eliminated, there were no signs of hostages in the area. The forces that are operating in the area are continuing to operate with required caution.”
Hamas has not yet commented on the reports, but sources from the group, quoted by Reuters news agency, said there were indications he had been killed.
US officials previously told Sky News’ US partner NBC News that the Israeli mission seemed to have been carried out on Wednesday, possibly in Rafah.
They added that the US had not been involved and did not provide intelligence, with senior Pentagon officials only finding out after the operation had been carried out.
US sources believed that, if confirmed, the killing of Sinwar was a “lucky break” for the Israeli military, NBC also reported.
Sinwar took over full leadership of Hamas after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, who was the political leader of the group, in Iran in July.
He has believed to have been hiding in the network of tunnels beneath Gaza since the militant group’s attack on Israel last year.
US President Joe Biden has been briefed on Israel’s investigation into whether it has killed the Hamas leader, and US officials have been in close contact with Israeli officials throughout Thursday morning, according to a senior administration official.
SINWAR’S DEATH COULD MARK THE COLLAPSE OF ANY REMAINING HAMAS RESISTANCE IN GAZA
If Sinwar’s death is confirmed it would be a very, very significant moment in the war.
I think it will have significant consequences. You have two aspects to it. Firstly, there’s still fighting on the ground itself between Israeli forces and what remains of Hamas in Gaza on a daily basis.
Currently it is mainly focused on northern Gaza.
You would assume that if Sinwar is confirmed to have been killed, given that so many other senior commanders have been killed over recent months, that what we might see is a collapse of any remaining Hamas resistance in Gaza.
And then in relation to the hostages captured by Hamas on 7 October last year, Sinwar had become the point man on Hamas’ side for any hostage negotiations.
Any developments in hostage negotiations had to go through him, through quite a long-winded route, because he was, we assume, spending so much time underground, he would have been very aware of the security surrounding any communications he had with the outside world.
But events, discussions, negotiations that have been going on in Cairo, in Doha or elsewhere would ultimately have to led back to Sinwar and it was the working assumption of late that he was not willing to enter into a ceasefire deal and a hostage release deal with Israel.
Many people blame Sinwar for why there are 101 hostages still in Gaza and there has been no hostage deal.
If he has been eliminated, it’s hard to say whether that will bring about some acceleration in the hostage negotiations. It’s really hard to say, because I don’t know who the negotiators would now speak to.
It comes as Israeli forces continued a more than week-old major air and ground assault in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.
An Israeli strike hit a school sheltering displaced Palestinians on Thursday, killing at least 28 people, including five children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The war in Gaza is now more than a year old – with Israel having killed more than 42,000 Palestinians in response to Hamas’ incursion on 7 October last year, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Hamas killed some 1,200 people and captured around 250 hostages when its militants entered Israel on 7 October.
