Two senior Hamas leaders, whom Israel announced it had killed in 2024, were buried in Gaza, Agence France-Presse reported, quoted by BTA. Their remains were found under the rubble in the enclave, thanks to a ceasefire agreement.
Several hundred people attended the funerals of Rawhi Mustaha and Sami Udeh during Friday prayers in the courtyard of the Great Mosque of Omar, a historic monument in the heart of Gaza City, which has been severely damaged by Israeli bombing.
The bodies of the two men, draped in green Hamas flags, were carried from the mosque to the burial site by about fifteen members of the Palestinian Islamist movement's military wing.
Their bodies were found in a tunnel bombed by Israel, AFP reported, citing its own sources.
In early October 2024, the Israeli army announced that it had "liquidated" a few months earlier the two men in a strike in the Gaza Strip.
Rawhi Mustaha, who was blacklisted by the US in 2015 as a “international terrorist”, was a member of the "Hamas" political bureau" in Gaza and was responsible for finances. Sami Udeh was the head of the "Hamas Internal Security Service".
The Palestinian movement officially acknowledged their deaths in a statement saying they died as "martyrs".