JERUSALEM, May 15 (Reuters) – Israel said on Friday that it had targeted Izz al-Din al-Haddad, head of the armed wing of Hamas, considered to be one of the architects of the October 7, 2023 attacks against the Jewish state in Gaza.
Two strikes against an apartment in the Rimal neighborhood in the city of Gaza and against a vehicle located in a nearby street left at least three dead and 20 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 charge 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, leader of the al Qassam brigades, is the highest-ranking commander targeted by Israel since the US-brokered ceasefire agreement 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 killings, 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)
Copyright 2026 Thomson Reuters.
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