Who are the top leaders of Hamas in Gaza?
Marwan Issa, who was the target of an Israeli attack in central Gaza last weekend, is one of three Hamas leaders in Gaza who Israel says were the main planners of the October 7 attack, which killed more than 1,200 people and led to the kidnapping of about 240 others, according to Israeli officials. It remained unclear on Tuesday whether the strike had affected him.
Here’s what you need to know about the top Hamas leaders in Gaza:
Marwan Issa
Mr. Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing, is believed to be the highest-ranking Hamas military official to be killed by Israel in recent years. Like many other senior Hamas military leaders in Gaza, Mr. Issa has kept a low profile and rarely appeared in public, in part to avoid targeted attacks such as one over the weekend that the Israeli military said hit an underground space he had used.
An Israeli military spokesman described Mr. Issa as someone who helped plan the Hamas-led attack on October 7. In addition to his military role, Mr. Issa served as a negotiator in talks that led to a ceasefire after nearly two months. A week-long flare-up with Israel in 2021, as well as a deal in 2011, when a captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, was exchanged for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Yahya Sinwar
Mr Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp, which was set up after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and has since become a permanent community, part of the wider town of Khan Younis in southern Gaza . He founded a predecessor of Hamas’s military wing, called Al Majd, and helped found Hamas in 1987. At the time, he was responsible for identifying and punishing Palestinians suspected of violating “morality codes” or collaborating with Israel.
In 1988, Mr. Sinwar was arrested by Israeli forces and sentenced to four life sentences for his role in the murders of four Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel, Israeli court records show.
Mr. Sinwar spent more than 20 years in Israeli prison and was released as part of the Gilad Shalit deal in 2011. Upon his return to Gaza, Mr. Sinwar slowly rose through the ranks of the Hamas leadership and took on a role in itself that resembled that of Minister of Defense. in 2012, and was elected to the top Hamas post in Gaza in 2017. Known as a hardliner, he developed a reputation for brutality, earning him the nickname “the butcher of Khan Younis.”
Mohammed Deif
Mr. Deif, the enigmatic commander of Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, was also born in the Khan Younis refugee camp. As a young man, he joined Hamas around the time it was founded, and he quickly rose through the ranks of the organization, succeeding the founder of Hamas’s military wing, Salah Shehadeh, in 2002 after Mr. Shehadeh was killed in an Israeli attack. He orchestrated numerous attacks on Israel, including a series of suicide bombings in 1996. Mr. Deif, known as Hamas’s top bomb maker, also built Hamas’s military wing into a fighting force.
Mr. Deif has been at the top of Israel’s most wanted terrorist list for decades and has evaded more than eight attempts on his life, according to Israeli intelligence. Israeli intelligence officials believe he lost an eye and was seriously injured in these attempts. In 2014, an Israeli airstrike killed one of his wives and their young son.
Mr. Deif has not been seen in public for years, and Israeli officials believe he has spent the past decades in Hamas’s warren of underground tunnels. After the Oct. 7 attack, Mr. Deif said in a recorded message released by Hamas that the group had decided to launch an “operation” so that “the enemy will understand that the time of their rampage without accountability is over.”