An Israeli airstrike earlier this month killed top Hamas leader Muhammad Sinwar while he was in a tunnel underneath a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip, Israeli defense officials confirmed on Saturday evening, three days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a similar announcement.
In a joint statement, the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet security agency said they had confirmed that the May 13 strike on the grounds of the European Hospital in Khan Younis had killed Sinwar along with Muhammad Shabana, commander of the terror group’s Rafah Brigade, and Mahdi Quara, commander of the South Khan Younis Battalion.
“The terrorists were eliminated while operating in an underground command and control center under the European Hospital in Khan Younis, deliberately endangering the civilian population in and around the hospital,” the joint statement said.
Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal quoted Hamas and Arab officials as saying that the meeting of the top Hamas figures was convened to discuss their approach to talks on a ceasefire and hostage release deal, among other matters.
Presented with this opportunity, the Israeli Air Force immediately began preparing for a strike, though top officers expected it would likely be called off due to fears of harming hostages, which Sinwar reportedly kept close to him.
When solid intelligence arrived that no hostages were present near the senior commanders, the IAF was given the green light, jets were scrambled, and the bombing went ahead.
The IDF said it carried out “extensive intelligence measures… “to enable a precise strike that would mitigate civilian harm to the greatest extent possible.”
Fighter jets dropped over 50 munitions in 30 seconds in the strike, according to the military. The “precise” missiles hit the underground Hamas command center and tunnel system, killing the senior commanders without harming the hospital itself, the IDF said.
The army later bombed the area several more times to prevent anyone from approaching the tunnel and aiding any potentially wounded terror operatives inside.
The Hamas-run health ministry reported 16 dead and over 70 wounded in the strike.
Muhammed Sinwar, a senior Hamas military commander, was the younger brother of the former Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar. The younger Sinwar had been at the top of Israel’s most wanted list for months.
Israeli officials described Sinwar as obstinate concerning negotiations for the release of hostages and as an obstacle to reaching a ceasefire deal.
Following the killing of Hamas’s top military commander, Muhammad Deif, in July 2024, Muhammad Sinwar took charge of the terror group’s military wing. Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that led to the war in Gaza, was named overall Hamas leader after Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran that same month.
After Yahya Sinwar was killed in combat in October 2024, Muhammad Sinwar became the de facto leader of the terror group in the Gaza Strip.
The IDF described the younger Sinwar as “among the most senior and long-serving members of Hamas’s military wing,” adding that he “played a significant role in planning and executing the brutal October 7 massacre, serving as chief of operations at the time.”
Sinwar previously served as the commander of the Khan Younis Brigade and the head of Hamas’s military operations division.
He was jailed by Israel in the 1990s for nine months and spent an additional three years in a Palestinian Authority prison in Ramallah, from which he escaped in 2000. In 2006, Sinwar was part of the Hamas cell that abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
Shabana, according to the IDF, “was one of the planners and executors of the brutal October 7 massacre and oversaw the captivity of many hostages in southern Gaza.”
Muhammad Sinwar’s death left his close associate Izz al-Din Haddad — the commander of the Gaza City Brigade — in charge of Hamas across the whole of the enclave.
It remains unclear how Sinwar’s death has affected decision-making in the group in regards to ceasefire negotiations.
After the military confirmed the death of Sinwar, Defense Minister Israel Katz warned the remaining leaders of the terror group in Gaza and abroad that they were next.
“Now it is official: The murderer Muhammad Sinwar has been eliminated with the Rafah Brigade commander Muhammad Shabana and the wicked gang who were with them under the European Hospital in Gaza, and he was sent to meet his brother at the gates of hell,” Katz said in a statement.
“Izz al-Din Haddad in Gaza and Khalil al-Hayya abroad, and all their partners in crime, you are next in line,” he added. Al-Hayya is a member of Hamas’s leadership council abroad.
Most of Hamas’s leadership was eliminated by Israel during the ongoing war.