(Updated with new assessment)
Israel said on Friday that it had targeted in Gaza Izz al-Din al-Haddad, head of the armed wing of Hamas, considered one of the architects of the attacks of October 7, 2023 against the Jewish state.
Two strikes against an apartment in the Rimal district of Gaza City and against a vehicle located in a nearby street left at least seven dead and around fifty injured, medical sources in Gaza said, without it being immediately known whether the Hamas commander was among the victims.
Neither the Israeli authorities nor Hamas have communicated on the fate of Izz al-Din al-Haddad, who took the head of the armed wing of the Palestinian group in the Palestinian enclave following the assassination by Israel of Mohammed Sinouar in May 2025.
Izz al-Din al-Haddad, head of the al Qassam brigades, is the highest-ranking commander targeted by Israel since the ceasefire agreement concluded under the aegis of the United States last October.
In a joint statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Israel Katz called Izz al-Din al-Haddad “responsible for the murders, kidnappings and harm inflicted on thousands of Israeli civilians and soldiers.”
(Reporting by Rami Ayyub in Jerusalem and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; French version Zhifan Liu, editing by Jean-Stéphane Brosse)
