WASHINGTON – Israeli forces have killed one of Hamas’ highest-ranking military leaders in the Gaza Strip, a senior White House official said on March 18.
Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’ military wing, “was killed in an Israeli operation last week”, Mr Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, told reporters at a White House briefing.
A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, said Israel had not confirmed Issa’s death but that there were many indications he had been killed.
Israeli officials have said Issa was targeted by an Israeli air strike between March 9 and 10.
Although they have stopped short of saying whether Issa was killed in the attack, the officials have hinted at his possible death – the Israeli military chief of staff said on March 17 that Hamas was trying “to hide” the fate of senior Hamas officials, without directly naming them.
In the attack, Israeli warplanes struck an underground space in the Nuseirat neighbourhood of central Gaza that had been used by Issa and another senior Hamas military official responsible for the group’s weapons, a spokesman for the Israeli military, Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari, said a week ago.
Hamas, which has announced the deaths of just a few of its members since the war began, did not immediately comment on Mr Sullivan’s remarks.
The Israeli military declined to comment on the remarks on March 18.
The death of Issa, a key figure in Hamas’ armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, would represent a victory for Israel, whose leaders have vowed to wipe out the Hamas leadership in Gaza – although the group has swiftly replaced such leaders in the past, and many of Hamas’ top political leaders live outside the enclave.
One of the most senior Hamas officials to have been confirmed dead since the start of the war is Saleh al-Arouri, a founder of the group’s armed wing.
Hamas said he was killed in an Israeli attack in Lebanon on Jan 2.
But despite an Israeli military campaign that has battered Hamas over the past five months, the group’s leader in Gaza and the presumed mastermind of its Oct 7 attack on Israel, Yahya Sinwar, has eluded Israeli forces.
Mohammed Deif, the top commander of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, is also believed to be alive.
Rear-Adm Hagari has said Issa helped plan the Oct 7 attack and last week and described him as part of “the main triangle of terror” in Gaza, alongside Sinwar and Deif. NYTIMES
