A senior Hamas figure who helped plan and oversee the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel has been killed in an Israeli airstrike, officials in Israel and Gaza have said.
Samir Abu Younis, the newly appointed commander of the Rafah Brigade, was killed on Saturday in Al-Mawasi in the southern Gaza Strip, according to Hamas's Al-Qassam Brigades military wing.
A local Hamas official confirmed Younis's death. The Israeli military said it had targeted him and that prior to the strike "steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians".
Eyewitnesses in Gaza said four missiles struck a tent in the Al-Waha camp, which shelters hundreds of displaced people in Al-Mawasi, causing a fire to break out.
A medical source at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis said three injured people had arrived there, as well as a dead body.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and Israel's security agency, the ISA, confirmed in a statement on Telegram that it had "eliminated" Younis.
Describing him as a "central figure among Hamas's senior figures", it said he had "acted with the aim of trying to restore the strength of the brigade and the Hamas terrorist organisation".
It added: "Younis directed the brigade's terrorists to advance and carry out terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops."