The Israeli military recovered the body of de facto Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar in a tunnel underneath the European Hospital in southern Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Sunday.
The IDF said it made the announcement after the body went through an identification process.
Sinwar is the younger brother of former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by the Israeli military in southern Gaza in October.
His death marks the latest in a string of assassinations that have dealt a serious blow to the group’s top brass but are yet to break its grip on power in the besieged enclave.
The elusive Sinwar was targeted in a massive airstrike on the hospital in Khan Younis on May 13, a day after Hamas released Israeli-American soldier Edan Alexander.
At the time, the IDF said it had struck “Hamas terrorists in a command-and-control center” in underground infrastructure at the hospital.
But it took more than two weeks for Israel to say that it had definitively killed Sinwar in the strike.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the announcement on the 600th day of the war two weeks ago.
“We changed the face of the Middle East, we pushed the terrorists from our territories, we entered the Gaza Strip with force, we eliminated tens of thousands of terrorists, we eliminated (Mohammad) Deif, (Ismail) Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Sinwar,” Netanyahu said in a speech at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
The attack killed 28 Palestinians and wounded more than 50 others, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said after the strike.
This is a developing story and will be updated.