Abu Obeida, the spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, has been killed in an aerial attack in Gaza City, Israeli officials has claimed.
Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz congratulated the Israel Defense Forces and its security agency, Shin Bet, for the “flawless execution” in a post on X. Hamas has not yet confirmed this. The Palestinian armed group earlier said dozens of civilians were killed and injured in the Israeli air strikes on a residential building in the district.
Local media reported that at least seven people had been killed and 20 injured in the strikes on the densely populated al-Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City, with children among the casualties.
Saturday’s attack comes amid ongoing aerial strikes on Gaza City ahead of a planned Israeli offensive. Katz warned on Sunday that many more of Obeida’s “criminal partners” would be targeted with “the intensification of the campaign in Gaza” – a reference to a recently approved Israeli plan to take Gaza City under control.
Separately, the IDF and Shin Bet offered more details about Saturday’s strikes that targeted the Hamas spokesman. They said in a joint statement that the operation had been “made possible due to prior intelligence gathered by [Shin Bet] and the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate” that had identified his hiding place.
Obeida was among the few remaining senior members of Hamas’s military wing from before its deadly 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel. Five missiles struck the second and third floor of the six-storey apartment in the al-Rimal neighbourhood building simultaneously from two different directions.
