Hamas’s Gaza chief Mohammed Sinwar has been ‘eliminated’, says Netanyahu

 The head of Hamas in Gaza, Mohammed Sinwar, has been killed, Benjamin Netanyahu has said.

Speaking to Israel’s parliament on Wednesday, the prime minister included Sinwar in a list of Hamas leaders killed in Israeli air strikes. There has been no response from Hamas.

Netanyahu said: “We have eliminated Mohammed Deif, Yahya Sinwar, and Mohammed Sinwar.”

Sinwar’s older brother, Yahya Sinwar, helped mastermind the deadly October 7 attacks on Israel. He became head of Hamas in Gaza and later the group’s overall chief after Israel assassinated then leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in August last year. Yahya was killed by Israeli forces in October.

Sinwar is believed to have become the head of the group’s armed wing following his brother’s death.

Sinwar was reportedly killed after a large scale Israeli air strike on a tunnel under a hospital in Gaza which left many civilian Palestinians dead.

Netanyahu said it was possible that Sinwar had been killed during an air strike on 21 May, though earlier media reports said the strike took place on 13 May.

“In the last two days we have been in a dramatic turn towards a complete defeat of Hamas,” the Israeli leader told the Knesset.

The majority of Hamas’ senior military leadership have now been killed in Israeli attacks since the war began.

Netanyahu’s announcement comes as the Israeli military has intensified its campaign in Gaza after breaking a fragile ceasefire with Hamas in March.

Israel has said it aims to dismantle Hamas’s governing and military capabilities and secure the release of hostages that are still held in Gaza.

On Wednesday, Israel marked 600 days since Hamas’s attack, which saw 1,200 people killed and 251 taken hostage. A total of 58 hostages remain unaccounted for but it is not known how many are still alive.

Gaza health officials say 54,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s air and ground attacks, more than in any other of the countless rounds of war between the two sides. It says women and children make up most of the dead but does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally.

EU criticises Israel’s new aid plan

Announcing Sinwar’s death, Netanyahu said Israel was also “taking control of food distribution” in and out of Gaza.

The new aid distribution system, backed by the US, would be run by the little-known Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

The GHF uses private security contractors and bypasses the UN, which deems the foundation’s plans as unethical.

The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said on Wednesday that “Israeli strikes in Gaza go beyond what is necessary to fight Hamas”.

Kallas said the EU did not support an aid distribution model which bypasses the UN and other humanitarian groups.

“We don’t support the privatisation of the distribution of humanitarian aid. Humanitarian aid can not be weaponised,” she said.

“The majority of the aid to Gaza is provided by the EU but it’s not reaching the people as it is blocked by Israel.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also criticised Israel saying he “no longer understands” the country’s objectives in the war.

France, Canada and the UK also demanded the Israeli military end its latest offensive in Gaza to allow aid to enter the strip.

Netanyahu has also vowed to facilitate a “voluntary emigration” plan sending Gazans to other countries and aims to create a zone to relocate citizens to the south while Israeli troops continue fighting Hamas in the north.

UK toughens its stance

Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced a pause in trade talks and announced new sanctions aimed at settler violence in the occupied West Bank earlier this month.

Using the strongest language yet of any UK government minister, he told MPs that Israel was guilty of “monstrous” actions in Gaza which were “morally unjustifiable [and] wholly disproportionate”.

“We are now entering a dark new phase in this conflict. Netanyahu’s government is planning to drive Gazans from their homes into a corner of the Strip to the south and permit them a fraction of the aid that they need,” Lammy told the House of Commons.

“We must call this what it is. It is extremism. It is dangerous. It is repellent. It is monstrous. And I condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”

Sir Keir Starmer said the risk of starvation due to the restriction of aid and supplies, and the bombardment of children through military expansion, was “intolerable and unacceptable”.

The Middle East minister, Hamish Falconer, also summoned Israel’s ambassador, Tzipi Hotovely, to the Foreign Office, telling her the UK would not “stand by” as the Israel Defence Forces escalate military operations in Gaza.

Hamas’s leaders

Yahya Sinwar

Yahya Sinwar was born in the Gaza Strip in 1962 and joined Hamas early on.

He founded Hamas’s security service, know as Majd, which sought to track down Israeli intelligence and security officers.

Sinwar was the architect of the 7 October attacks and had been the leader of Hamas in Gaza, but became the overall head of the group following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July this year.

He was killed in Rafah on 16 October, 2024.

Ismail Haniyeh

Ismail Haniyeh was the group’s overall leader until he was killed in Iran on 31 July, 2024.

He was elected as head of Hamas’s political bureau in 2017.

Haniyeh was killed alongside his bodyguard after attending the inauguration of Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian.

Mohammed Deif

A key planner of the 7 October attacks, Mohammed Deif was the head of Hamas’s military wing – the al-Qassam Brigades.

He was imprisoned in 1989 but after his released he helped engineer the tunnels now used by Hamas to get inside Israel from Gaza.

Deif was killed in an air strike on Khan Yunis in July 2024.

Marwan Issa

Marwan Issa was the deputy commander-in-chief of al-Qassam Brigades.

He was on Israel’s most wanted list and was injured in an attempted assassination in 2006.

Israel said he was killed in an air strike on a tunnel under a refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip in March 2024.

Khaled Meshaal, who was born in the occupied West Bank in 1956, is considered one of the founders of Hamas.

Meshaal lives in Qatar and visited the Gaza Strip for the first time in 2012.

He has been head of the group’s political bureau since 2024 and is considered one of the prominent leaders of the group.

Mahmoud Zahar

One of the group’s most prominent leaders, Zahar joined Haniyeh’s newly formed government before its eventual dismissal in 2007.

Israel attempted to assassinate Zahar in 2003 but killed his eldest son, Khaled.

His second son, Hossam, who was a member of the al-Qassam Brigades, was killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza in 2008.