Israel says it has killed Hamas spokesperson in Gaza City strike

Israel killed the longtime spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing in a Gaza City airstrike, the country’s defense minister said Sunday, as the military prepares an offensive on the capital city where it believes other Hamas leaders are sheltering.

The spokesman, known by his nom de guerre, Abu Obeida, was famous for his fiery speeches denouncing Israel while wearing a kaffiyeh wrapped around his face. He was one of the few surviving senior Hamas officials left in the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz congratulated the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel’s security agency, Shin Bet, for the “flawless execution” in a post on X. Hamas has not confirmed his death.

Katz warned on Sunday that many more of Obeida’s “criminal partners” would be targeted with “the intensification of the campaign in Gaza” – a reference to a recently approved Israeli plan to seize control of Gaza City.

Separately, the IDF and Shin Bet offered more details about Saturday’s strikes that targeted the Hamas spokesman. They said in a joint statement that the operation had been “made possible due to prior intelligence gathered by [Shin Bet] and the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate” that had identified his hiding place.

Over the past few years, Obeida – believed to be about 40 years old – delivered a number of long diatribes against Israel on behalf of Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades. Always masked in a Palestinian scarf, he became an idol to Hamas supporters throughout the Middle East. 

In what may have been his final speech on Friday, Obeida said the fate of remaining Israeli hostages would be the same as that of Hamas fighters, warning Israel against its planned invasion of Gaza City.

The IDF said that prior to the attack “many steps were taken to reduce the chance of harming civilians, including the use of precision weapons, aerial observations, and additional intelligence information”.