Israeli security cabinet ministers have been told that it is highly likely that the leader of "Hamas" Yahya Sinuar is dead, reported Reuters.
The Israeli public television "Can" and the TV channel "Ann 12 News" also announced that the head of the Palestinian movement had been liquidated.
The Israeli military said earlier today that it was investigating the possibility that Sinwar, 61, was among those killed in an operation in the Gaza Strip that the military said targeted three militants.
Sinwar's predecessor, Ismail Haniya, was killed in late July in an Israeli airstrike in the Iranian capital, Tehran. Israeli army chief of staff Herzi Halevi vowed on August 7 to find and eliminate his successor. Sinwar is believed to be the mastermind of the unprecedented attack carried out by "Hamas" against Israeli territory on October 7 last year, according to Reuters.
Besides Haniya, the Israeli army has already eliminated several senior commanders of "Hamas" in the Gaza Strip, as well as leading figures of the Lebanese Shiite group led by its leader Hassan Nasrallah, dealing heavy blows to their supporting enemies, the agency noted.
If Sinwar's death is confirmed, it would escalate hostilities in the Middle East, where fears of a wider conflict have grown as Israel prepares to respond to an Iranian missile attack since October 1 this year.
The elimination of Sinuar would raise the morale of the Israeli army and of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally, Reuters also points out. According to the agency, the leader of "Hamas" has never repented of the bloody attack on Israel last fall, in which, according to Israeli figures, more than 1,200 people were killed and some 250 hostages were taken, even though the Israeli counter-offensive claimed tens of thousands of Palestinian casualties in Gaza .
"From Patched Sack to Leader" - with this title, the Reuters agency describes the rise of Yahya Sinuar to the top of "Hamas". Before the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict erupted, he sometimes talked about his early years in the enclave during the Israeli occupation. He once described how his mother sewed clothes from UN aid sacks. This is what Wissam Ibrahim, living in Gaza, who spoke with Sinwar at the time, told Reuters.
The leader of "Hamas" grew up in refugee camps in the family of Palestinians who fled the Israeli city of Ashkelon during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Becomes a member of "Hamas" shortly after the organization was founded in the 1980s.
In a semi-autobiographical novel written in prison, Sinuar describes the demolition of Palestinian houses by the Israeli army with a bulldozer he calls "a monster that crushes the bones of its prey". In prison, he gained fame as a merciless bully, carrying out orders to punish Palestinians who were suspected of passing information to Israel.
He gradually became a prison leader with 22 years behind bars after gaining street legend status with the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians. He was arrested in 1988 and received four life sentences.
Despite his fearsome reputation and short temper, he is recognized as the architect of Hamas's military strategy, Reuters notes. He rose in the hierarchy of the movement with the support of Iran, where he visited in 2012. His speech is emblematic, in which he promises to cause a flood in Israel, hinting at a war that will unite the world and create a Palestinian state in the territory occupied by the Israelis in 1967.
His excessive personal endurance of physical pain and patience, which reflected his views on self-sacrifice for the Palestinian cause, played a role in the 2011 negotiations to exchange 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, including himself, for an Israeli soldier kidnapped from him in Gaza. This kidnapping led to an Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip and thousands of dead Palestinians, Reuters recalls.
After his release from prison, he married and had three children, according to Reuters, adding that according to the accounts of his cellmates, "Sinouar's head is harder than a rock".