Netanyahu says Israel killed senior Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Mohammed Sinwar, believed to be the head of Hamas’ armed wing, has been killed, apparently confirming his death in a recent strike in the Gaza Strip. There was no confirmation from Hamas.

Sinwar is the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who helped mastermind the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack that started the Israel-Hamas war, and who was killed by Israeli forces in October 2024.

Israeli strikes have decimated Hamas’ leadership during the 19-month war, and Mohammed Sinwar was one of the last widely known leaders still alive in Gaza. But the terrorist group has maintained its rule over the parts of Gaza not seized by Israel. It still holds dozens of hostages and carries out sporadic attacks on Israeli forces.

Israel has vowed to continue the war until all the hostages are returned and Hamas has been either defeated or disarmed and sent into exile.

The Israeli Defense Ministry said Wednesday that its forces have been using high-powered lasers to intercept threats during the current conflicts inflaming the region, the first time it has used the technology in a war setting.

“The laser system grants Israel an additional, precise, cheap and fast interception layer that will change the rules of the game in the region,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.

President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said the the U.S. administration is close to issuing a new “term sheet” to Israel and Hamas that would set the parameters for a temporary ceasefire.

Witkoff, speaking with Trump at his side after the ceremonial swearing-in of Jeanine Pirro, Trump’s interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., said that the outlines of the U.S. proposal could be delivered later on Wednesday.

Netanyahu mentioned the killing of Sinwar in a speech before parliament in which he listed the names of other top Hamas leaders killed during the war. “We have killed ten of thousands of terrorists. We killed (Mohammed) Deif, (Ismail) Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Sinwar,” he said.

Israeli media had reported that the younger Sinwar was the target of a May 13 strike on what the military said was a Hamas command center beneath the European Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the Sinwars’ hometown.

Wednesday marked 600 days since the war in Gaza began with the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel, which left around 1,200 dead. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed around 54,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally.

The relatives of Israelis held in Gaza, along with some former hostages, pleaded for release of the remaining captives. Some 58 captives remain, about a third of whom Israel believes are still alive.

“The most important thing is human life and that our citizens return home,” said Luis Har, who was help captive and rescued in an Israeli military mission last year. He spoke at a press conference in Tel Aviv marking 600 days.

Later Wednesday, the families and their supporters were holding a rally at an area that’s become known as Hostages Square to mark the milestone.

Hamas captured roughly 250 people during its 2023 attack. Most have been freed in ceasefire deals.

Meanwhile, four Palestinians died Wednesday as a chaotic crush of people stormed into a U.N. World Food Program warehouse in the central Gaza Strip, as hundreds tried to grab food aid.

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, blasted the U.N. agencies facilitating aid in Gaza, accusing the international body of holding up aid at border crossings.

“As we speak, there are more than 400 trucks already on the other side of the fence, waiting to be distributed, but the U.N. has failed to pick them up,” Danon told reporters Wednesday. “We opened the crossings. We provided safe routes for those truck. But the U.N. did not show up.”

Danon also denied U.N. and Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry statements that Israeli forces shot at Palestinians who were trying to get aid through a new U.S.-backed mechanism Tuesday: “There were a few riots. It took the American teams sometime to take control of the situation but I can say it out loud: We didn’t shoot anyone over there.”

Danon confirmed that Israel will continue to allow the U.N. to operate aid deliveries into Gaza while the new mechanism builds out throughout the Gaza Strip.