Israel Is Examining if Hamas Leader Was Killed in Gaza

The Israeli military said Thursday that it is assessing whether Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed in the Gaza Strip.

The military released no further details about the assessment, but four Israeli officials said the military was taking the body of a slain militant to a laboratory in Israel to assess whether its DNA matches that of Sinwar.

The militant was killed Wednesday during a firefight in southern Gaza with Israeli soldiers, according to three of the officials. The remains of the body will be compared to DNA collected from Sinwar during his decades-long incarceration inside Israeli jails, two officials said.

U.S. officials said Israel had told the Americans that its soldiers may have killed Sinwar. All the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss a sensitive matter. Hamas made no immediate comment.

The death of Sinwar, an architect of the Hamas-led attack in October 2023 that set off the war in Gaza, would raise hopes of an end to the conflict. Both Sinwar and the Israeli government had refused to compromise during the monthslong negotiations for a truce. His death could either prompt Hamas to agree to some of Israel’s demands — or provide Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a symbolic victory that would give him the political cover he needs to soften his own negotiating stance.

The military statement Thursday said three militants were killed in the exchange and that there were no signs of hostages nearby. It added that soldiers continued to operate in the area.

Israeli officials said they believed the body may be Sinwar’s because of the physical similarities, and because intelligence had suggested he was hiding in southern Gaza.

But they also urged caution because no DNA test had yet been carried out and because they were surprised that such a senior Hamas leader would have been caught in a gunfight above ground. Sinwar, who is in his early 60s, was thought to have been killed on previous occasions, only for the initial conjecture to be proven wrong.

Israel and the United States both invested huge resources in the hunt for Sinwar. U.S. spy agencies formed a targeting cell after the October 2023 attacks in Israel to study him and try to intercept his communications.

In late January, Israeli and U.S. officials thought they were on the verge of catching him when Israeli commandos raided an elaborate tunnel complex in southern Gaza where they thought he was hiding, according to U.S. and Israeli officials. But Sinwar had moved from the bunker beneath the city of Khan Younis just days earlier, leaving behind documents and stacks of Israeli shekels totaling about $1 million, the officials said.

In August, Israeli troops who discovered the bodies of six hostages in a warren of tunnels beneath Rafah, in southern Gaza, found signs of Sinwar’s past presence in the area, according to Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister.

Sinwar’s decision to attack Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, has proved one of the most fateful moves in recent Middle East history. About 1,200 people were killed in Israel some 250 others abducted in the assault, which set off a devastating Israeli counterattack in Gaza in which more than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed and much of the blockaded territory left in ruins.

It also led to a broader war between Israel and Hamas’ regional allies, including Iran, the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel is currently mounting extensive ground and air attacks.

Sinwar has been in hiding throughout the war, eschewing electronic devices and relying on a network of couriers to stay in touch with his organization, according to Israeli and U.S. officials. At times, his communications with Hamas have been intermittent, prompting repeated speculation about his fate.

But he remained by far Hamas’ most important figure, with the group’s representatives at cease-fire negotiations in Qatar this year telling diplomats that they needed Sinwar’s input before taking major decisions. In recent months, U.S. officials came to believe Sinwar did not want to reach a deal and was determined to see Israel enmeshed in a broader regional war.

Sinwar emerged from two decades of prison in Israel to rise to the helm of Hamas in Gaza in 2017. In August, he was also named political leader of the entire movement, both inside and outside Gaza, after Israel assassinated his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh, consolidating Sinwar’s influence over the organization.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .