JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel had eliminated Hamas Gaza chief Mohammad Sinwar, one of its most wanted targets and the younger brother of the deceased group’s leader, Yahya Sinwar.
Mohammad Sinwar had been the target of an Israeli strike on a hospital in southern Gaza earlier this month and Netanyahu said on May 21 that it was likely he had been killed.
“We eliminated Mohammad Deif, (Ismail) Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammad Sinwar,” Netanyahu said, confirming the death to the Israeli parliament, known as the Knesset.
“In the last two days we have been in a dramatic turn towards a complete defeat of Hamas,” he said, adding that Israel was also “taking control of food distribution”, a reference to a new aid distribution system in Gaza managed by a U.S.-backed group.
Hamas has yet to confirm Sinwar’s death.
Sinwar was elevated to the top ranks of the Palestinian militant group last year after Israel killed his brother Yahya in combat.
Yahya Sinwar masterminded the October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war, now in its 20th month, and was later named the overall leader of the group after Israel killed his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. (This story has been refiled to conform spelling to Mohammad in the headline and paragraph 1)
(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell and Emily Rose; Writing by Ahmed Elimam; Editing by Alison Williams, Aidan Lewis)
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