Israel says strike killed Hamas govt chief, 2 top leaders 3 months ago

The Israeli military on Thursday (3 October) said a strike three months ago killed three senior Hamas leaders in Gaza, where the army has been battling the Palestinian militants for nearly a year.

The military said the strike killed Rawhi Mushtaha, the head of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, and Sameh al-Siraj, who held the security portfolio for Hamas's political bureau, and Sami Oudeh, a commander.

"Mushtaha was one of Hamas' most senior operatives and had a direct impact on decisions relating to Hamas' force deployment," said the military in a statement.

The military called Mushtaha the "right-hand man" to Hamas's top leader Yahya Sinwar.

In 2015, the US State Department had designated Mushtaha as a "specially designated global terrorist".

The European Council on Foreign Relations described Mushtaha as a member of Hamas's Gaza politburo who also oversaw its financial affairs.

The ECFR said Siraj was a politburo member, while Oudeh was said to be the leader of the group's internal security agency.

Israel's military campaign to wipe out Hamas is believed to have severely weakened the group by killing several of its leaders and thousands of fighters, while also reducing swaths of the territory it rules to rubble.

The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas's 7 October attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,788 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.