The Israeli army announces the killing of a top Hamas official in the Gaza Strip. Who was the nicknamed “Ghost”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Saturday that they had killed the commander of the military wing of Hamas, Izz al-Din al-Haddad, in an airstrike carried out the previous day in the Palestinian enclave, Reuters reported.
The IDF carried out at least two attacks on the Gaza Strip on Friday, killing seven Palestinians, including three women and a child, according to local medics.
A senior Hamas official confirmed on condition of anonymity that Izz al-Din al-Haddad, who was born in 1970, was killed in an attack. The militant group did not publicly announce his death.
A funeral service for Haddad, his wife and their 19-year-old daughter was being held at a mosque in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday. It is unclear at this time how they died.
Haddad was the highest-ranking Hamas official to be killed by Israel since the US-brokered ceasefire took effect in October.
Israel had tried several times to kill him
Nicknamed “The Ghost”, he had survived several Israeli assassination attempts, according to Hamas sources. The IDF described him as one of the longest-serving commanders of the Palestinian militant movement, rising through the ranks since the organization was founded in the 1980s and holding several senior positions.
In a joint statement on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that the military had carried out an attack against the Hamas leader, but did not mention that he had been killed.
The two said Haddad was one of the architects of the massacre committed by Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023, after which Israel responded with the military campaign in the Gaza Strip.
He took over the leadership of Hamas' armed wing after Mohammad Sinwar was killed by Israel in May 2025. “He was responsible for the killing, kidnapping and bodily harm of thousands of Israeli civilians (and) soldiers,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister Israel Katz said.
