Israel confirms that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed in Gaza

JERUSALEM – Israeli forces in Gaza have killed top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a chief architect of last year’s attack on Israel that sparked the war, the army said Thursday. It appeared that troops had encountered him in combat, only to discover that the body in the rubble was the man Israel has been hunting for more than a year.

Sinwar has been at the top of Israel’s most wanted list since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas just over a year ago, and his killing is a powerful blow to the militant group. There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas of his death.

The army confirmed Sinwar’s death after conducting DNA tests on a body they said was one of three militants killed during operations in Gaza on Wednesday. Foreign Minister Israel Katz called Sinwar’s killing a “military and moral achievement for the Israeli army” and said it would “create the opportunity to immediately release the hostages.”

Defense Secretary Yoav Gallant addressed Hamas fighters, saying it is “time to come out, release the hostages, raise your hands and surrender.”

Sinwar was one of the main architects of Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel has vowed to kill him since the start of its retaliatory campaign in Gaza. He has been Hamas’s top leader in the Gaza Strip for years, closely associated with Hamas’s military wing while dramatically building up its capabilities.

An Israeli security official said it appeared the man identified as Sinwar was killed in combat, and not in a planned targeted airstrike.

Photos circulating online showed the body of a man resembling Sinwar with a gaping head wound, wearing a military-style vest, half-buried in the rubble of a destroyed building. The security official confirmed that the photos were taken at the scene by Israeli security officials. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

Israeli news site N12 said Sinwar appeared to have been killed accidentally during combat on Wednesday. According to the report, troops followed a group of militants into a building and then attacked the militants with tank fire, causing the building to collapse. When troops dug up the dead militants, they noticed that one resembled Sinwar.

Sinwar was imprisoned by Israel from the late 1980s until 2011, during which time he underwent treatment for brain cancer, leaving Israeli authorities with extensive medical records.

President Joe Biden has been briefed on Israel’s investigation into whether it killed Sinwar, and U.S. officials were in close contact with Israeli officials throughout Thursday morning, a senior administration official said.

Sinwar was elected Hamas’ top leader in July after his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in an apparent Israeli attack in the Iranian capital Tehran. Israel has also claimed to have killed the head of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif, in an airstrike, but the group says he survived.

Word of his death came as Israeli forces continued a more than week-old major air and ground assault on the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. On Thursday, an Israeli attack hit a school housing displaced Palestinians, killing at least 28 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Fares Abu Hamza, head of the Health Ministry’s emergency unit in northern Gaza, said the dead included a woman and four children, correcting an earlier report of five children. He said dozens of people were injured.

The Israeli military said it targeted a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command center at the school. It included a list of about a dozen names of people it identified as militants who were present when the strike was called. It was not immediately possible to verify the names.

Israel has repeatedly hit tent camps and schools housing displaced people in Gaza. The Israeli army says it carries out precise attacks on militants and tries to prevent harm to civilians, but its strikes often kill women and children.

Israel launched its campaign in Gaza to eliminate Hamas after the militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping about 250 others. There are still about 100 prisoners in Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.

According to the Israeli Ministry of Health, more than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but says women and children account for just over half of the fatalities.

Northern Gaza was the first target of Israel’s ground invasion nearly a year ago and has suffered some of the worst destruction of the war, with entire neighborhoods in Gaza City and other cities in ruins. Most of the population fled after Israel issued evacuation orders in the early days of the war, but around 400,000 people are believed to have remained despite the harsh conditions.

Earlier this month, Israel again ordered a complete evacuation of the north, banning food aid from entering the area for about two weeks. That led many Palestinians to fear that the country had adopted a surrender-or-starve strategy proposed by former Israeli generals.

Israel allowed two aid shipments into the north earlier this week after the United States warned it could cut its military aid if its ally did not do more to tackle the humanitarian crisis.

Since the start of the conflict, Israeli forces have repeatedly launched operations in Jabaliya, a densely populated urban refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s founding. The military says militants have repeatedly regrouped there after major operations.

Sami Magdy reported from Cairo. AP writers Jack Jeffery in Jerusalem and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.