Israel on Thursday confirmed the death of the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the 7 October 2023 attacks. The assassination was just the latest in a series of killings of senior Hamas leaders and other militants since that assault and the beginning of the war in Gaza.
Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy chair of Hamas’s guiding council and founding member, was killed in Beirut by a suspected Israeli air strike in January 2024. The 57-year-old was accused of running Hamas military operations in the occupied West Bank, and playing a key role in the group’s financial networks. Arouri was also believed to run relations between Hamas and other groups, including Hezbollah and the small Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
In March this year, an airstrike killed Marwan Issa, a senior military commander and one of the closed circle who had known of the 7 October attack plan. Issa had been targeted when moving between locations and unaccompanied by hostages. After the strike, Hamas leaders cut communications entirely, with each other or anyone else, for days for fear of infiltration or a technological security breach that could expose them all.
In July, a massive Israeli airstrike in al-Mawasi, a supposedly safe humanitarian zone in Gaza, killed Mohammed Deif, Sinwar’s closest aide. Another veteran of decades of militancy, the 58-year-old had escaped seven previous assassination attempts by Israel, though is thought to have sustained permanent injuries. Deif oversaw suicide bombing campaigns in the 1990s and, more recently, Hamas’ efforts to build more effective rockets in Gaza and the immense tunnel complex across the territory. He is also thought to have been tasked with training Hamas’ elite Nukhba forces. The attack that killed him also killed 90 civilians.
Fuad Shukr, a founder member of Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Iran-backed militia, was killed by an air strike on July 30. Shukr, 63, had been involved in the massive suicide bombings launched against US, French and Israeli targets in 1983. He played a key role in developing Hezbollah’s military capabilities, took on a role as chief of staff within Hezbollah and was a senior military adviser to its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
A day later, Ismail Haniyeh, the chairman of Hamas’s guiding council, died when a bomb exploded in his bedroom in a government guesthouse in Tehran. Haniyeh, 60, was visiting the Iranian capital for the inauguration of the new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Another founding member of Hamas, Haniyeh is not thought to have had prior knowledge of the 7 October attacks and his relationship with Sinwar was tense. Dozens of his family members have reportedly been killed in Israeli strikes and shelling in Gaza.
In September, Hassan Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah for more than three decades, was killed by Israel in a series of strikes on the group’s underground headquarters in Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut. Nasrallah, 64, built up a fervent personal following, steering the Shia Muslim movement through a number of transitions, balancing the demands of its military role with those of its expansive social welfare systems, building a political wing and negotiating the various crises that broke across the region. He earned adulation from supporters and bitter personal enmity from foes.