Live Updates: Hamas Leader Killed in Gaza Fighting, Israel Says
The Israeli military confirmed that Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, was killed on Wednesday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said he spoke with President Biden about working to advance a deal “to free the hostages.”
transcript
Yahya Sinwar, Hamas Leader, Was Killed, Israel Confirms
Yahya Sinwar has been the No. 1 target for Israel since the beginning of the war in Gaza.
This is a critical, time-sensitive development as it relates to the hostages. We are calling on the Israeli government and the U.S. administration to act swiftly and do whatever is needed to reach a deal with the captors.
The Israeli military confirmed on Thursday that Yahya Sinwar, the powerful and elusive militant leader who has been the No. 1 target for Israel since the beginning of the war, had been killed in battle.
Mr. Sinwar was viewed as the architect of the brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel that set off the 13-month war that has plunged the Gaza Strip into a humanitarian crisis and began a wider conflict that now includes the fighting in Lebanon.
After a firefight in Gaza on Wednesday with Hamas forces, Israeli soldiers retrieved a body that appeared to be that of Mr. Sinwar. A sample of his DNA was tested to confirm his identity, according to an Israeli official with knowledge of the matter. The police in Israel said they had also used Mr. Sinwar’s dental records and fingerprints, both of which were on file, for identification purposes. There was no immediate response from Hamas.
Since launching the assault on Hamas in Gaza last October in retaliation for Hamas’s cross-border raids, in which about 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 abducted, Israeli officials have repeatedly said that their goal was nothing less than the destruction of the militant group.
But no target loomed larger for Israel than Mr. Sinwar himself. Over his past year in hiding in the devastated enclave, he was believed to still be closely overseeing Hamas military operations.
Israel’s military and intelligence services, backed by the United States, dedicated vast resources in its search for Mr. Sinwar. But in the end, a unit of trainee squad commanders unexpectedly encountered him while on an operation in southern Gaza, according to four Israeli defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel stopped short of declaring total victory against Hamas in a statement, and vowed to get the remaining hostages in Gaza released. He made an offer to those holding hostages, promising to let them “leave and live” if they set aside their weapons and returned the captives.
His death might encourage Hamas to agree to Israeli demands, and might also offer Israel a military success that could lead the Netanyahu government to ease its negotiating stance. Hamas and the Israeli government have remained far apart on key issues during months of negotiations over a truce.
Mr. Sinwar’s death raises hopes for an end to a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Gazans and plunged many more into a humanitarian crisis.
Here’s what else to know:
Identifying the body: Israeli officials initially matched Mr. Sinwar’s dental information and fingerprints with records on file, the Israeli police said in a statement. A sample of his DNA was tested to confirm his identity, according to an Israeli official with knowledge of the matter.
Reaction in Israel: For the families of the dozens of hostages remaining in Gaza, the death of Mr. Sinwar brought both a moment of satisfaction and deep trepidation for the fate of the captives.
Hamas leadership: Mr. Sinwar’s death deals a significant blow to the militant organization’s leadership. These are some of the remaining leaders of the militant group.
President Biden said on Thursday that the death of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who was killed by the Israeli military on Wednesday, could create the opportunity to “move on” to a cease-fire in Gaza, adding that he had spoken to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to congratulate him on Mr. Sinwar’s death.
“It’s time for this war to end and bring these hostages home. So that’s what we’re ready to do,” Mr. Biden told reporters upon his arrival in Berlin on Thursday evening. He added that he was “hopeful” about the prospects of a cease-fire and would be sending Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken to Israel in the coming four to five days to discuss securing Gaza and what the “day after” the war will look like.
“Yahya Sinwar was an insurmountable obstacle to achieving all of those goals,” Mr. Biden said in a statement earlier on Thursday. “That obstacle no longer exists. But much work remains before us.”
The death of Mr. Sinwar, the Hamas leader who was the architect of the Oct. 7 attacks, comes as the relationship between Mr. Netanyahu and the U.S. president has frayed. The two leaders had spoken last week for the first time in two months to discuss Israel’s plans to retaliate against Iran for a missile attack earlier in October. Looming over that discussion was the burden of their worsening ties.
President Biden has on occasion privately expressed his frustrations with Mr. Netanyahu and his conduct of the war in Gaza, sometimes in salty terms, as documented in a new book by the investigative reporter Bob Woodward. Mr. Biden has also lamented to Mr. Netanyahu directly that he lacks a strategy for the war, according to the book.
But Mr. Sinwar’s death seems to present an opportunity for both men to claim a victory and perhaps get on the same page again. According to Mr. Netanyahu’s office, President Biden called him on Thursday evening and both leaders “agreed that there is an opportunity to advance a deal to free the hostages and they will work together to achieve that goal,” according to the Israeli statement.
Negotiations on a cease-fire deal that would see the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza have been deadlocked for months, with both Israel and Hamas blaming each other.
After landing in Berlin to meet with European leaders, President Biden walked over to reporters and said he had already congratulated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and would be sending Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken to Israel in the next four or five days. “Now is the time to move on,” Biden said. “Move on, move toward to a cease-fire in Gaza, make sure that we move in a direction that we’re going to be in a position to make things better for the whole world. It’s time for this war to end and bring these hostages home.”
U.S. military forces had no role in the Israeli operation that killed Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, in Gaza, according to the Pentagon. Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, made that point repeatedly in a briefing to reporters on Thursday. “Just to be crystal clear: This was an Israeli operation,” he said. “There was no U.S. forces directly involved.”
Israeli soldiers and intelligence agents had spent months pursuing Yahya Sinwar after the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, occasionally finding clues but never managing to trap him, according to Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman. Signs of Sinwar’s DNA were found at one point in a tunnel a few hundred meters from where Israeli forces found the bodies of six Israeli hostages killed by their captors six weeks ago, Hagari told reporters.
Israeli demonstrators and supporters of the families of those still held hostage in Gaza rallied near the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv on Thursday.
President Biden called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Thursday in the wake of the death of Yahya Sinwar, Netanyahu’s office said. Both leaders “agreed that there is an opportunity to advance a deal to free the hostages and they will work together to achieve that goal,” according to the statement. Negotiations on a cease-fire deal that would see the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza have been deadlocked for months, with both Israel and Hamas blaming each other.
“The path that Sinwar wanted for the region — death, destruction, instability, chaos — is a path that we know the people of the region reject,” said Miller, the State Department spokesman. “The horrors of the past year cannot be the future and they do not need to be the future. It is time to chart a different path.”
transcript
The path that Sinwar wanted for the region — death, destruction, instability, chaos — is a path that we know the people of the region reject. The horrors of the past year cannot be the future, and they do not need to be the future. It is time to chart a different path.
Miller said he hoped that the next leader of Hamas would look at the suffering of the Palestinian people and decide “to pursue a different path forward.” He declined to speculate about who that Hamas leader might be.
The State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said in a briefing with reporters on Thursday that Sinwar was responsible for the deaths of civilians from about 30 countries, including Israel and the United States, as well as for the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. He called the Hamas leader the “chief obstacle” to cease-fire talks and said his death offered “a seismic opportunity” to relaunch negotiations to end the war.
In a statement on the death of Yahya Sinwar, the American secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, said the United States would “redouble its efforts with partners to end this conflict” and aimed to “secure the release all hostages, and chart a new path forward that will enable the people of Gaza to rebuild their lives and realize their aspirations free from war and free from the brutal grip of Hamas.”
For over a year, Israel’s security establishment, backed by the United States, dedicated vast resources and gathered mounds of intelligence in its hunt for Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who was an architect of the Oct. 7 attacks.
But in the end, a unit of trainee squad commanders unexpectedly encountered Mr. Sinwar while on an operation in southern Gaza, according to four Israeli defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The unit was on patrol in southern Gaza on Wednesday when the Israeli soldiers came upon a small group of fighters, the officials said. The soldiers — backed by drones — engaged in a firefight, and three Palestinian militants were killed.
During the battle, Israeli fire brought down part of a building where the militants had taken cover, two officials said. As the dust cleared and they began searching the building, the Israeli soldiers noticed that one of the bodies bore a shocking resemblance to the Hamas leader, the three officials said.
It was a seemingly unlikely place to find him. Israeli and U.S. intelligence had long assessed that Mr. Sinwar — fearful for his own safety — had been hiding deep underground, surrounding himself with Israeli hostages to avoid assassination.
Photographs obtained by The New York Times, some of which later circulated online, show the body of a man with facial features strongly resembling Mr. Sinwar. The man’s body has several severe wounds, including to the head and leg. The photographs show that the body has several features matching those seen in archival footage of Mr. Sinwar, including distinctive moles near his eyes and crooked teeth.
Hours after the fight was over, the soldiers approached the bodies cautiously. The area was still littered with explosive devices, two officials said. They also thought that the body of one fighter, later identified as Mr. Sinwar, was booby-trapped.
They found money and weaponry alongside the militants, according to one of the officials, who shared photos of the scene, including some in which the items were on display.
The troops, one of the officials said, were also concerned that there might be hostages in the area as well, but none were found with the fighters. There is no evidence that any of the hostages still held in Gaza were harmed during the battle, the Israeli military said.
On Thursday evening, the Israeli military, after completing its identification process, announced that Mr. Sinwar was dead.
Aric Toler, Riley Mellen and Christiaan Triebert contributed reporting.
President Emmanuel Macron of France said on social media that Sinwar was “the main person responsible for the terrorist attacks and barbaric acts of October 7th,” adding that he thinks “with emotion” about the victims and their loved ones. He added: “France demands the release of all hostages still held by Hamas.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, speaking about Yahya Sinwar’s death after a campaign stop in Milwaukee, said that “justice has been served.” She added: “He had American blood on his hands.” Harris said Sinwar’s death should lead to a cessation of Israel’s offensive in Gaza. “This moment gives us an opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza,” she said.
President Biden says he will be speaking soon with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to discuss the pathway for bringing the hostages home to their families, and for ending this war once and for all, which has caused so much devastation to innocent people.”
President Biden said he directed Special Operations forces to work with the Israelis to track down Sinwar and other Hamas leaders hiding in Gaza in the past year. “With our intelligence help, the IDF relentlessly pursued Hamas’s leaders, flushing them out of their hiding places and forcing them onto the run.” It’s unclear if Israel used information from U.S. intelligence sources to track Sinwar down on Wednesday.
People gathered around to watch the news on Sinwar’s fate on television in a makeshift cafe on the side of a road in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Thursday.
Israel’s biggest allies are reacting to the news of Yahya Sinwar’s death. Germany’s Foreign Office said that the Hamas leader had “brought death to thousands of people and immeasurable suffering across an entire region.” It called on Hamas to “immediately release all hostages and lay down its weapons,” saying that “the suffering of the people in Gaza must finally end.”
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke today with Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, to discuss “shared efforts to end the war in Gaza and reduce the escalation in Lebanon,” the Qatari prime minister’s office said. Qatar has been a major mediator in talks over a cease-fire with Hamas, which maintains a political office in Doha, the country’s capital.
Iranian state news media are portraying Sinwar’s death as “martyrdom” and distinguishing him from leaders who died while hiding in bunker tunnels or commanding fighters from outside Gaza, praising Sinwar for dying while fighting Israel in Gaza.
Since Sinwar was in Gaza and had been Israel’s top target since the beginning of the war, Iran, to a degree, had been expecting his death. It did not shake Tehran as much as the assassinations of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, and Hezbollah’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, celebrated Sinwar’s death, calling the Hamas leader “a mass murderer who killed thousands of Israelis and kidnapped hundreds of our citizens.” But he stopped short of declaring total victory in Israel’s war against Hamas. “Today, evil took a heavy blow — the mission ahead of us is still unfinished,” Netanyahu said. He added that Sinwar’s death was “an important milestone in the sunset of Hamas’s evil rule in Gaza.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, in announcing that Yahya Sinwar had been killed by the Israeli military, directed his statements to the families of hostages being held in Gaza. “This is an important moment in the war,” Netanyahu said, adding that he pledged to work to bring the remaining hostages home. He called it an “obligation.”
In his statement, Netanyahu told Gazans holding the remaining dozens of hostages in the enclave that they would be allowed “to leave and live” if they set aside their weapons and returned the captives. But, possibly concerned about reprisals for Sinwar’s death, he warned that anyone who harmed Israeli hostages would pay with their lives.
Israeli officials identified Yahya Sinwar by matching his dental information and fingerprints with records on file, the Israeli police said in a statement. The matches provided “definitive identification” of the Hamas leader, the police said.
Hamas has yet to respond to Israel’s announcement of Sinwar’s death. Several Hamas officials abroad did not answer calls or requests for comment by text message.
Reporting from Jerusalem
For the families and supporters of the scores of hostages remaining in Gaza, the killing of Yahya Sinwar, their chief captor, brought both a moment of satisfaction and deep trepidation for the fate of the captives.
“On the one hand it’s a national closing of the circle,” said Anna Astmaker, a cousin of Karina Ariev, a surveillance soldier who was abducted from her army base near the Gaza border last year and who turned 20 in captivity.
“I heard a lot of celebrations and cheers of joy in my neighborhood, and justifiably so,” Ms. Astmaker said, speaking by telephone from her home in Jerusalem soon after Mr. Sinwar’s death was confirmed. “But my head immediately filled with questions,” she added.
“What does it mean for Karina and the other hostages?” she said, raising the prospect of an accelerated push for a deal to bring them home or, more darkly, the possibility that Mr. Sinwar’s supporters could avenge his killing by harming them.
Mr. Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, was an architect of the Oct. 7 terror attack in Israel during which more than 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others — civilians and soldiers — were captured and taken into Gaza, according to the Israeli authorities.
More than a hundred hostages were released in an initial deal last November during a temporary cease-fire in fighting after Israel had launched a punishing counteroffensive, and in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners and detainees from custody in Israel.
Of the 101 hostages remaining in Gaza, at least a third are believed to be no longer alive.
Only eight hostages have been rescued alive by Israeli forces. Others were taken into Gaza dead, have since been killed by their captors or, in some cases, were killed accidentally by Israeli fire.
Adding to the fears and sense of urgency over the fate of those remaining, six hostages were fatally shot at close range in late August by their captors in a tunnel in Rafah, in southern Gaza, apparently as Israeli soldiers, unaware of their presence, were operating nearby, aboveground, according to Israeli officials.
Negotiations for a new cease-fire deal that would bring about the hostages’ release have been at an impasse for some time.
Einav Zangauker, the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker and one of the most vocal and prominent campaigners for a hostage deal, said in a video statement, “Now, more than ever, the lives of my son Matan and the other hostages are in tangible danger.”
Ms. Zangauker, addressing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, implored the Israeli government to come up with a new diplomatic initiative. “Don’t bury the hostages,” she said, adding, “You have your victory image. Now bring a deal.”
Critics have accused Mr. Netanyahu of delaying a deal in recent months by adding new conditions. Mr. Netanyahu, in turn, blamed the failure on Mr. Sinwar.
In a televised statement announcing Mr. Sinwar’s death, Mr. Netanyahu addressed the families of the hostages, saying it was his, and the country’s, “supreme commitment” to bring them home. He called on all those holding the hostages to put down their weapons and give them up, promising that those who did so would be allowed to come out of hiding and live.
Ms. Astmaker said it was not clear to the families if the government knew where the hostages were, or what their situation was. The family of Ms. Ariev, the surveillance soldier, last received a sign that she was alive several months ago.
The Hostages Families Forum, a grass-roots group that supports the hostages’ families and advocates their release, commended the Israeli security forces for eliminating Mr. Sinwar, but also spoke to the precariousness of the moment.
“We express deep concern for the fate of the 101 men, women, elderly and children still held captive by Hamas in Gaza,” the group said in a statement.
Yehuda Cohen, the father of an abducted soldier, told Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster, that the death of Mr. Sinwar could have two very different outcomes for the hostages, echoing the concerns of Ms. Astmaker and Ms. Zangauker. It could help advance a process toward their release, he said. But he also said he was “fearful,” particularly after the killing of the six hostages in August.
“I hope no order has gone out,” he said, meaning an order for the gunmen holding the hostages to execute them should Mr. Sinwar be killed.
Carol Sutherland contributed reporting.
For Iran, a key supporter of Hamas, the killing of its leader, Yahya Sinwar, represents another tactical and morale setback among a series of Israeli attacks on its allied militant groups in the region. Iranian officials have not commented yet, but pundits and supporters of the government have started posting messages of condolence on social media. Iranian state news media have published Sinwar’s biography and said that the ideology of Hamas would endure long after the death of its leaders.
The death of the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed on Wednesday by Israeli forces in Gaza, deals a significant blow to the militant organization.
Israel has made eliminating Hamas’s leadership an aim of the war in Gaza, and it considered Mr. Sinwar one of its biggest targets. Long considered by Israel and the United States as the planner of Hamas’s military strategy in Gaza, Mr. Sinwar also took on the role of the organization’s political chief two months ago, after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh.
For months, Mr. Sinwar had evaded the sort of Israeli efforts to find and kill him that have led to the deaths of other senior officials in Hamas, including Mr. Haniyeh.
Hamas’s leadership structure is opaque, but here is what is known about some of Hamas’s most prominent figures who are still believed to be alive or whose fate is unclear:
Khaled Meshal, a former political head of Hamas
Born near the West Bank city of Ramallah, Mr. Meshal became the leader of Hamas’s political office in 1996, directing the group from exile. Two years later, Israeli agents injected him with a slow-acting poison in Jordan, sending him into a coma before he was saved by an antidote provided by Israel as part of a diplomatic deal with Jordan.
Mr. Meshal spent his career moving from one Arab nation to another, living in Kuwait, Jordan, Qatar and Syria. When he stepped down as head of the political office, he was succeeded in 2017 by Mr. Haniyeh. Mr. Meshal remains an influential official in the group.
Khalil al-Hayya, the deputy leader of Hamas in Gaza
Mr. al-Hayya, who now lives in exile in Qatar, has been a Hamas official for decades and is Mr. Sinwar’s deputy. He survived an Israeli assassination attempt in 2007, when an airstrike on his home in Gaza killed members of his family while he was not there.
Mousa Abu Marzouk, a member of Hamas’s top political bureau
One of Hamas’s founders, Mr. Abu Marzouk started his political career in the United Arab Emirates, where he helped found a branch of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, from which Hamas was formed, according to the European Council on Foreign Relations.
He later went to the United States, where he helped found Islamic institutions, including those focused on the Palestinian cause. In 1996, when he headed Hamas’s political bureau, he faced Israeli charges of financing and helping organize terrorist attacks. After 22 months spent in a Manhattan jail on suspicion of terrorism, he agreed to relinquish his permanent resident status in the United States and said he would not contest the terrorism accusations that led to his detention. The United States then deported him to Jordan.
Muhammad Deif, the commander of Hamas’s military
Mr. Deif, another of the suspected planners of the Oct. 7 attacks, joined Hamas as a young man. In 2002, he became the leader of Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, succeeding its founder, who was killed in an Israeli strike. Mr. Deif has since orchestrated multiple attacks on Israel, including a series of suicide bombings in 1996.
In July, Israeli forces bombarded a densely packed coastal area of Gaza with heavy munitions in an attempt to kill Mr. Deif. Scores of Gazans were killed in the attack. Israel’s military later said that it had killed Mr. Deif in the strike. Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied his death.
He had been at the top of Israel’s list of most-wanted terrorists for decades, earlier evading more than eight attempts on his life, according to Israeli intelligence. In 2014, an Israeli airstrike killed one of his wives and their infant son.
Gazans were reacting to reports that Yahya Sinwar may have been killed on Thursday, with some wondering whether confirmation of the Hamas leader’s death would do anything to end Israel’s yearlong war in Gaza.
Some people said they welcomed the news of his death, hoping it would mean a quick end to the conflict. Others said they didn’t believe the reports and hoped they weren’t true.
“I wish he rots in hell. He is responsible for all this destruction,” said Fadia, a 42-year-old teacher from Jabaliya, who didn’t want her last name published for fear of retribution from Hamas. “I am actually relieved he is gone. This should mean the war is coming to an end now, I hope.”
Her sentiments were echoed by Rezeq El-Sabti, a 44-year-old father who has been displaced from his home and is living with his family in a tent in Nuseirat, in central Gaza. He said the killing of Mr. Sinwar would allow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to declare victory over Hamas.
“Netanyahu will say to his people that we killed Sinwar, who waged war on us,” Mr. El-Sabti said, “and this gives us hope that the war will end.”
But other Hamas leaders have been killed by Israel, he added, and their deaths have done nothing to end the war in Gaza.
Mr. El-Sabti said that Mr. Sinwar and other Hamas leaders erred by launching the attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, given how the group made no preparations to protect ordinary Gazans from Israeli airstrikes and how the ensuing humanitarian crisis has caused food shortages and a lack of medical care.
Since early in the war, many Gazans have held Hamas responsible for starting the conflict, while also still blaming Israel for killing more than 40,000 people, according to local health officials.
Rehab Ibrahim Odeh, 64, said Mr. Sinwar’s killing would not change the bleak reality in Gaza. Ahmed Masalha, 45, who has been displaced from his home in Gaza City, said that Mr. Sinwar was no different from any other Palestinian who has been killed or who died.
Rayan Raef Hamdan, 20, of Khan Younis, said she would wait until Hamas confirmed the news, but she was hoping it was false.
“This is not the first Israeli story about the killing of Yahya Sinwar,” Ms. Hamdan said. “Since the beginning of the war, we have heard many of these rumors.” She added: “We hope that God will prolong his life and save him from death.”
Iyad Abuheweila and Abu Bakr Bashir contributed reporting.
An Israeli airstrike on a United Nations school being used as a shelter for displaced people killed more than two dozen people in northern Gaza on Thursday, according to rescue workers and the Gaza government media office.
The strike came as Israel faced increasing pressure from the United States and other allies to address an escalating humanitarian crisis in the enclave’s north, where an estimated 400,000 people have remained trapped during an Israeli military offensive.
The Israeli military said the strike on Thursday hit a school complex in Jabaliya that was serving as a command and control center for Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The military said it had killed dozens of fighters in the strike. There were reports that more than 100 people were injured.
Rescue workers, Palestinian media and at least one civilian who had been living there said the site had housed civilians. Juliette Touma, a spokeswoman for UNRWA, the U.N. agency that assists Palestinian refugees, confirmed that one of its schools in Jabaliya was struck on Thursday.
“We received reports that among the scores of people killed are children, which is often the case,” Ms. Touma said, adding that the school was the third UNRWA site to be attacked in the last week. She said the U.N. had not been able to determine the accuracy of Israel’s claims that Hamas and other groups were active in its school compounds.
“We call for an independent investigation and commissions of inquiry to look into these reoccurring claims,” she said. “We call once again on all Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas, to refrain from using UNRWA facilities for military or fighting purposes.”
The Gaza government media office said the strike had killed 28 people and injured 160 more. One man who had been staying in the school compound, Mahmoud Hamdouna, 29, said he left the building just minutes before the strike to search for food. He ran back when he heard the explosion and found a scene that was “horrific, a real massacre,” he said.
“I saw around 25 dead bodies and so many injured,” said Mr. Hamdouna, who had fled to Jabaliya from Beit Hanoun, another town in Gaza’s besieged north. “People lost limbs at the scene and many had serious head injuries. Many others are still under the rubble.”
Satellite imagery captured three days before the strike showed many tents inside the school’s courtyard.
Satellite imagery from before attack
Abu Hussein School
Tents inside
compound
Satellite imagery from before attack
Abu Hussein School
Tents inside
compound
Regular schooling has not happened in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war last October. Instead, displaced people have sought shelter at disused school buildings across the enclave, crowding into classrooms, corridors and playgrounds.
But school buildings have also been a frequent target for airstrikes because Israel argues that many have been used by Hamas to house fighters, store equipment or plan attacks. A vast majority of school buildings, including every university in the Gaza Strip, has been damaged or destroyed during the war.
The Israeli military said in a statement that before the airstrike on Thursday it had taken “numerous steps” to “mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence.”
“This is a further example of the Hamas terrorist organization’s systematic abuse of civilian infrastructure in violation of international law,” the military said.
Lauren Leatherby contributed reporting.
The Israeli military said on Thursday that it was assessing whether Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had been killed in the Gaza Strip.
The military released no further details about the assessment, but four Israeli officials said the military was taking the body of a slain militant to a laboratory in Israel in order to assess whether its DNA matches that of Mr. Sinwar.
The militant was killed on Wednesday during a firefight in southern Gaza with Israeli soldiers, according to three of the officials. The remains of the body will be compared to DNA collected from Mr. Sinwar during his decades-long incarceration inside Israeli jails, two officials said.
U.S. officials said that Israel had told the Americans that its soldiers may have killed Mr. Sinwar. All the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss a sensitive matter. Hamas made no immediate comment.
The death of Mr. Sinwar, an architect of the Hamas-led attack last October that set off the war in Gaza, would raise hopes of an end to the conflict. Both Mr. Sinwar and the Israeli government had refused to compromise during the monthslong negotiations for a truce. His death could either prompt Hamas to agree to some of Israel’s demands — or provide Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, with a symbolic victory that would give him the political cover he needs to soften his own negotiating stance.
The military statement on Thursday said that three militants were killed in the exchange and that there were no signs of hostages nearby. It added that soldiers continued to operate in the area.
Israeli officials said they believed the body may be Mr. Sinwar’s because of the physical similarities, and because intelligence had suggested he was hiding in southern Gaza.
But they also urged caution because no DNA test had yet been carried out and because they were surprised that such a senior Hamas leader would have been caught in a gunfight above ground. Mr. Sinwar, who is in his early 60s, was thought to have been killed on previous occasions, only for the initial conjecture to be proven wrong.
Israel and the United States both invested huge resources in the hunt for Mr. Sinwar. American spy agencies formed a targeting cell after last October’s attacks in Israel to study him and try to intercept his communications.
In late January, Israeli and American officials thought they were on the verge of catching him when Israeli commandos raided an elaborate tunnel complex in southern Gaza where they thought he was hiding, according to American and Israeli officials. But Mr. Sinwar had moved from the bunker beneath the city of Khan Younis just days earlier, leaving behind documents and stacks of Israeli shekels totaling about $1 million, the officials said.
In August, Israeli troops who discovered the bodies of six hostages in a warren of tunnels beneath Rafah, in southern Gaza, found signs of Mr. Sinwar’s past presence in the area, according to Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister.
Mr. Sinwar’s decision to attack Israel on Oct. 7 has proved one of the most fateful moves in recent Middle East history. Roughly 1,200 people were killed in Israel some 250 others abducted in the assault, which set off a devastating Israeli counterattack in Gaza in which more than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed and much of the blockaded territory left in ruins.
It also led to a broader war between Israel and Hamas’s regional allies, including Iran, the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel is currently mounting extensive ground and air attacks.
Mr. Sinwar has been in hiding throughout the war, eschewing electronic devices and relying on a network of couriers to stay in touch with his organization, according to Israeli and U.S. officials. At times, his communications with Hamas have been intermittent, prompting repeated speculation about his fate.
But he remained by far Hamas’s most important figure, with the group’s representatives at cease-fire negotiations in Qatar this year telling diplomats that they needed Mr. Sinwar’s input before taking major decisions. In recent months U.S. officials came to believe Mr. Sinwar did not want to reach a deal and was determined to see Israel enmeshed in a broader regional war.
Mr. Sinwar emerged from two decades of prison in Israel to rise to the helm of Hamas in Gaza in 2017. In August, he was also named political leader of the entire movement, both inside and outside Gaza, after Israel assassinated his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh, consolidating Mr. Sinwar’s influence over the organization.
Julian E. Barnes and David E. Sanger contributed reporting.
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