A senior Hamas official on Saturday confirmed that the commander of the group’s military wing, was killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike.
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.
The Israeli army claimed on Saturday that it killed al-Haddad.
Al-Haddad was killed in an attack on Gaza City, the army said in a statement.
There was no official statement from Hamas on the matter as yet.
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.
The statement comes as the Israeli army continues its daily violations of the truce in the Gaza Strip that took effect in October 2025. The ceasefire came after Tel Aviv's two-year genocidal war that killed over 72,000 people and wounded more than 172,000 others.
Medics in Gaza on Friday said that at least seven people, including three women and a child, were killed and at least 50 injured in air strikes targeting an apartment and a vehicle. It is not clear if Haddad was one of the dead.
Israel has escalated its attacks in Gaza in the weeks since halting its joint bombing with the U.S. in Iran.
