Israel’s Foreign Minister confirms that Hamas’ top leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed in Gaza

JERUSALEM (AP) — 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. Troops appeared to have unknowingly encountered him in a battle, only to discover that a body in the rubble was Israel’s most wanted man.

Israeli leaders celebrated his killing as a settlement of scores, just over a year after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel from Gaza in an attack that stunned the country. They also presented it as a moment for Hamas to surrender and release about a hundred hostages it still holds captive.

Yet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Our war is not over yet.” In addition to seeking the release of hostages, Netanyahu has said Israel must maintain long-term control of Gaza to ensure Hamas does not rearm – opening up the possibility of continued fighting.

For Hamas, Sinwar’s death is a crippling blow, but he has proven consistently resilient throughout the war. There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas about Sinwar’s death.

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

President Joe Biden called Sinwar’s death a “good day for Israel, for the United States and for the world,” compared to sentiments in the US following the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. He said he would talk to Netanyahu “to discuss the path to bringing the hostages home to their families and ending this war once and for all.”

Sinwar has been Hamas’s top leader in the Gaza Strip for years, closely linked to its military wing and has dramatically built up its capabilities. He was elevated to Hamas’s top post in July after his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an apparent Israeli attack in the Iranian capital Tehran.

In recent months, Israel has eliminated a series of senior figures from Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah with airstrikes. Israel claims to have killed the head of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif, in an airstrike, but the group claims he survived.

But in Sinwar’s case, troops found him by chance.

An Israeli military official said Sinwar was “engaged in a battle” with Israeli forces operating in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah and was seen running into a building. The army bombarded the building with tank fire.

The military had suspected that a number of top Hamas officials, including Sinwar, were in the area, but Sinwar was not the target of the day’s specific operations, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity under military briefing rules.

Visiting the site of the killing, Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi said that although the army had “carried out a lot of special operations in this war where we had excellent intelligence… Here we didn’t have it and the response was very, very strong.”

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.

The army said three militants were killed in the operation. According to police, one of them was confirmed to be Sinwar through dental records and fingerprints, and DNA testing was underway. 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.

Netanyahu said Israel has “settled the score” with the man behind the October 7 attack. But he added: “Today evil has suffered a heavy blow, but the task ahead is not yet completed.”

He said it was an “important moment in the war” to bring the hostages home and that anyone in Hamas who surrendered weapons and helped return the hostages would be able to leave Gaza safely.

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.

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.

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

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