Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Tuesday it has chosen Yahya Sinwar, its top official in Gaza who masterminded the October 7 attacks in Israel, as its new leader.
The choice of Sinwar, a secretive figure who leads Hamas’ hardliners and is close to Iran, was a defiant step. Sinwar is at the top of Israel’s kill list as it seeks to destroy Hamas and its leadership after the October 7 attack in which militants killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took about 250 as hostages.
Hamas said in a statement it named Sinwar as the new head of its political bureau to replace Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in Iran last week in a presumed Israeli strike. Also last week, Israel said it had confirmed the death of the head of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, in a July air strike in Gaza. Hamas has not confirmed his death.
Unlike Haniyeh, who had lived in exile in Qatar for years, Sinwar has remained in Gaza. As Hamas’ leader in the territory since 2017, he rarely appeared in public but kept an iron grip on Hamas’ rule. Close to Deif and the armed wing, known as the Qassam Brigades, he worked to build up the group’s military capabilities.
Sinwar has been in deep hiding since the October 7 attacks, while Israel unleashed its campaign in Gaza and the death toll among Palestinians, now near 40,000, rose.
Elsewhere, the Israeli military confirmed on Tuesday that Bilha Yinon, the last person listed as missing from the October 7 attack, was killed by militants that day.
“Today, IDF [Israel army] representatives officially informed the family of Bilha Yinon that she is no longer alive,” the military said in a statement.
The Israeli military and investigators had carried out an extensive search for her, the statement said.
“As part of this effort, evidence was discovered in the area of Yinon’s house that, after complex testing, enabled the verification of her identity,” it said.
Based on forensic evidence, Israeli experts determined that she was killed on October 7, the military added.
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Chinese-Israeli woman among 4 hostages rescued from Gaza
Chinese-Israeli woman among 4 hostages rescued from Gaza
Meanwhile, Israeli forces killed 45 Palestinian fighters in Gaza over the past day, the military said on Tuesday, after heavy fighting in which Hamas said it destroyed two armoured personnel carriers during an ambush near the city of Rafah.
The Israeli military said the Hamas official in charge of smuggling operations was among those killed and that his death significantly hit their ability to bring weapons and military equipment into the besieged enclave.
Air strikes killed five Palestinians in the al-Bureij camp, in central Gaza, medical staff said on Tuesday, while two others were killed in a separate air strike in Rafah, near the southern Gaza border with Egypt.
Later, an Israeli strike killed two Palestinians in Rafah, doctors said, and another killed five other people in Khan Younis, including local journalist Mohammad Abu Saada.
Abu Saada’s death brought to 166 the number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli fire since October 7, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said in a statement.
In Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, three Israeli missiles hit near a mosque wounding dozens of people, health officials said,
Elsewhere, Hamas’ armed wing said its fighters destroyed the two Israeli troop carriers in an ambush east of Rafah, where heavy fighting has been reported for weeks. There was no confirmation from the Israeli military.
The territory’s health ministry said Israeli military strikes have killed at least 30 Palestinians and wounded 66 others in the past 24 hours.
“Many victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, where the teams of the ambulance and civil emergency service can’t reach,” the ministry said in a statement.
With Israel braced for a possible attack in the north by Iran and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, it faces a multi-front threat, 10 months after the start of the war in Gaza.
In the larger Palestinian territory, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israeli forces also killed at least eight people on Tuesday and overnight.
Most of Gaza’s population has been displaced multiple times since the start of the war and the fighting has brought misery to thousands trapped in overcrowded tent shelters.
Residents said Israeli tank shelling continued overnight in Bureij, al-Maghazi, Nuseirat, and Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, where tens of thousands of displaced families from all over the enclave have sought temporary refuge.
Residents and Hamas media said tanks made a brief advance earlier on Tuesday in al-Zahra City northwest of Nuseirat.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse, Reuters
