A senior Hamas official told Reuters on Saturday that the chief of the group’s military wing had died, a day after Israel said that it had carried out airstrikes targeting him.
Earlier, witnesses in Gaza City said that mosques had announced Izz al-Din al-Haddad’s “martyrdom”. He is the most senior Hamas official killed by Israel since an October U.S.-backed ceasefire deal that was meant to halt fighting in Gaza.
Hamas has not publicly confirmed Haddad’s death.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a joint statement with his defence minister on Friday that Haddad had been targeted, though they did not say if he had been killed.
Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz said Haddad was an architect of the October 7, 2023 attacks launched by Hamas militants that precipitated Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza.
Haddad, who became the group’s military chief in Gaza after Israel’s killing of Mohammad Sinwar in May 2025, “was responsible for the murder, abduction, and harm inflicted on thousands of Israeli civilians (and) soldiers,” they said.
Israel and Hamas remain deadlocked in indirect talks to advance U.S. President Donald Trump’s post-war plan for Gaza that is meant to end more than two years of fighting.
