Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar (centre) welcomes supporters as they arrive in Gaza City to take part in a rally on April 14, 2023. Photo courtesy: AFP
The Israeli military said on Thursday (October 17, 2024) that it was investigating whether top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in a military operation in Gaza during an Israeli raid on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians. At least 15 people, including five children, were killed in the airstrike. , according to Gaza’s health ministry.
The army said in a statement that three militants were killed during the operation in Gaza, without saying where or in further detail. It said the identities of the three had not yet been confirmed, but it was “investigating the possibility” that one of the three was Mr Sinwar.
Shri Sinwar was one of the principal architects of Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023And Israel has vowed to kill him since the beginning of its retaliatory campaign in Gaza. Sinwar remained in hiding throughout the war.
The top man in Hamas for years, Mr. Sinwar was elected its top leader am following Ismail Haniyeh’s murder in an apparent Israeli attack on the Iranian capital Tehran in July. Israel has also claimed Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas’s military wing, assassinated in an airstrike, but the group said he survived.
The report came as Israeli forces continued more than a week-old major air and ground offensive on the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, where the Abu Hussein school was attacked on Thursday (October 17, 2024).
Fares Abu Hamza, head of the Gaza Health Ministry’s local emergency unit, confirmed the death toll from the attack and said dozens were injured. He said the nearby Kamal Advan Hospital was struggling to treat the casualties.
“Many women and children are in critical condition,” he said.
The Israeli military said it targeted a command center operated by Hamas and Islamic Jihad inside the school. It provided a list of names of about a dozen people, identified as militants, who were present at the time of the attack. It was not immediately possible to verify the names.
In a separate development, a building in central Beirut that houses offices of the Al Jazeera news network and the Norwegian Embassy was evacuated following warnings.
Al Jazeera’s Lebanon bureau chief Mazen Ibrahim said the building’s administration received three calls and asked everyone to leave the building, adding that it houses the embassies of Norway and Azerbaijan as well as dozens of offices. He said it was not clear who gave the warning.
Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ragnhild Simenstad said the building was evacuated after a “bomb threat”.
published – October 17, 2024 07:14 PM IST