‘We eliminated Sinwar’: Netanyahu confirms Hamas leader’s death

Addressing the Knesset, Mr Netanyahu included Mohammed Sinwar in a list of Hamas leaders killed by the Israeli military.

Mohammed Sinwar was in a tunnel network hit by a massive Israeli air strike last week.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appeared to confirm the death of Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, who was targeted in a massive strike earlier this month.

Addressing the Knesset, Mr Netanyahu included Sinwar – the brother of Yahya Sinwar, former Hamas chief who was killed by Israeli forces last year – in a list of the militant group’s leaders killed by the Israeli military.

“In Israel’s wars there have never been so many achievements on so many fronts,” Mr Netanyahu told MKs (Members of the Knesset) in an addressing marking the 600th day of the war with Hamas.

“We repelled the terrorists, eliminated Deif, Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar and Muhammad Sinwar. We cut off the supply of weapons to Hamas, returned about 90 per cent of the residents of the Gaza border region to their homes, and we are making a dramatic change in the Gaza Strip.”

The Prime Minister also argued that Israel’s military campaign had “changed the face of the Middle East” and “broken the strangleholds of the Iranian axis”.

The strike that killed Sinwar hit him as he attended a meeting of the group’s highest ranking militants, killing several important operatives and leaving a void in the top leadership of the US-designated terrorist group, Hamas and Arab officials said.

Sinwar was quietly buried days later, along with other top militants including Mohammad Shabana, the commander of the group’s Rafah brigade, the officials said.

The Hamas leaders had gathered in a tunnel in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis to discuss matters including their approach to ceasefire talks with Israel when they were hit, the officials said. The meeting went against Hamas’s wartime security protocols and created an opening for Israel to hit several high-value targets at once.

Sinwar became the de facto head of Hamas in Gaza after the death of his brother, one of the architects of the October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war between the militant group and Israel.

He has been seen by both Israel and Arab negotiators as a major block to ceasefire talks, and security sources told Israeli media his death could mark a major turn for negotiations. Shabana, his trusted lieutenant, had been expected to take over the terror organisation on the event of Sinwar’s death.

Their deaths have left a vacuum at the top of Hamas, with the only survivor in the top ranks appearing to be Izz ad-Din al-Haddad, commander of Hamas’s Gaza City Brigade, who is expected to take over as military chief.

In Washington, US envoy Steve Witkoff said the administration is close to issuing a new “term sheet” to Israel and Hamas that would set the parameters for a temporary ceasefire.

Speaking win the White House, Mr Witkoff said that the outlines of the US proposal could be delivered later Wednesday.

“I have some very good feelings about getting to a long-term resolution, temporary cease fire, and a long-term resolution, a peaceful resolution of that conflict,” he said.