Israel claims assassination of Hamas de facto PM in three-month old attack

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and Shin Bet have announced that Hamas’s de facto prime minister of the Gaza Strip, Rawhi Mushtaha, was killed in an Israeli attack several months ago.

Alongside Mushtaha, senior Hamas officials Sameh al-Siraj and Sami Odeh were also declared dead, following a targeted attack in the northern Gaza.

According to the IDF, the attack, carried out by fighter jets, targeted the officials while they were in a fortified tunnel used as a command centre.

The military had “precise intelligence” indicating the presence of the officials in the tunnel, which served as a Hamas control hub during the conflict.

The IDF described Mushtaha as one of the most senior figures within Hamas and a close associate of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

Mushtaha and Sinwar had previously served a prison sentence together in Israel, later working together to establish Hamas's general security mechanism.

Hamas has not confirmed the deaths of the officials.

The IDF claimed that the militant group is likely withholding the information to prevent a decline in morale.

Mushtaha was said to have had a significant influence on Hamas’s military operations while overseeing civil governance in Gaza, along with other key portfolios such as prisoners' affairs and finance.

The IDF’s declaration of the deaths follows months of speculation surrounding the fate of these key Hamas figures, after a series of Israeli strikes targeting senior operatives.

Moreover, an Israeli attack on a residential building in the Mezeh district of Damascus has claimed the lives of three people, including the son-in-law of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) confirmed that Hassan Jaafar Qassir, Nasrallah's son-in-law, was among the victims of the strike, which targeted a building reportedly used by Hezbollah and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).