Israel said on Friday that it carried out a strike in Gaza targeting Ezzedine Al-Haddad, who it described as chief of the armed wing of Palestinian movement Hamas.
Since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the Israeli military and intelligence services have waged an extensive campaign targeting the group’s senior political leaders and militant commanders in Gaza and across the region.
“The IDF has carried out a strike in Gaza targeting arch-terrorist Ezzedine Al-Haddad, commander of Hamas’s military wing and one of the principal architects of the October 7 massacre,” the defence minister’s office said in a statement.
It did not say whether he had been killed.
Gaza’s civil defence agency, a rescue service operating under Hamas, said one person was killed and around 20 others wounded after Israeli warplanes “bombed a residential building” in the Al-Ramal area of Gaza City.
The agency did not identify the victim.
Israeli television aired footage of a building on fire in Gaza, saying it was the site where Haddad had been targeted.
“Al-Haddad was responsible for the murder, abduction and harm inflicted upon thousands of Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers,” the defence minister’s office said.
“He held our hostages in brutal captivity, orchestrated terrorist attacks against our forces and refused to implement the agreement advanced by US President Donald Trump for Hamas’s disarmament and the demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip.”
Militants from Hamas’s armed wing led the October 7 attack, which according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures left 1,221 people dead.
Militants also abducted 251 hostages to Gaza.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 72,700 people, according to the territory’s health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority.
The figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
Over the course of the war, Israel has claimed responsibility for the assassinations of several Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, widely regarded as a mastermind of the October 7 attack.
It also killed Mohammed Deif, the longtime commander of Hamas’s armed wing and another key architect of the attack.
Israeli strikes have also targeted Hamas operatives in Lebanon, as well as senior Hezbollah commanders allied with the group, including former Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
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