“All indications” are that the Israeli Air Force killed Hamas terrorist leader in the Gaza Strip Mohammed Sinwar on May 13, Defense Minister Israel Katz told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Sunday.
Katz spoke shortly after Saudi Arabia’s Al-Hadath news outlet reported that Sinwar’s corpse, as well as that of Hamas Rafah Brigade commander Mohammed Shabanah, were discovered in a tunnel.
Katz told lawmakers that while official confirmation was pending, the available intelligence points to their deaths.
Earlier on Sunday, unnamed Israeli sources told Ynet that while they could not confirm that Sinwar’s remains were recovered, Jerusalem believes he was killed in the Israel Defense Forces’ May 13 airstrike targeting a Hamas command hub in the Khan Yunis Governorate in Gaza’s south.
Multiple Israeli Air Force fighter jets were involved in the strike on the base under the European Hospital in Al-Fukhari, a town the Khan Yunis Governate, which employed bunker-busting munitions to penetrate the subterranean complex.
Israeli sources told reporters last week that the site housed dozens of high-ranking Hamas officials and was being used to coordinate attacks.
Sinwar was a senior Hamas commander and brother of Yahya Sinwar, the former leader of the organization in the Strip, who was killed by Israeli soldiers on Oct. 16. Following his brother’s death, Mohammed Sinwar served as the group’s top “military” leader.
In a separate attack in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza on Sunday, the IDF targeted Zakaria Sinwar, another brother of Yahya and Muhammad Sinwar. His fate was not immediately clear.
According to Qatar’s Al Jazeera channel, Zakaria Sinwar was critically wounded in the assault. Doctors reportedly resumed efforts to save him after signs of life were detected when he was transferred to the morgue.
Yahya Sinwar was the mastermind behind the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people, primarily civilians, were murdered, thousands more were wounded and 251 kidnapped.