JERUSALEM: Israel said on Sunday its forces had struck a senior militant from Hamas’s military wing, which confirmed the death of one of its commanders in Gaza.
Samir Abu Younis, who played a key role in planning Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, was killed on Saturday, according to a statement from the movement’s Al-Qassam Brigades.
“A short while ago, the IDF and ISA struck a senior terrorist in Hamas’s military wing,” the Israeli military said in a joint statement with the internal security agency Shin Bet.
It said Younis had taken command of Al-Qassam’s Rafah Brigade two months earlier after his predecessor was killed in September.
The military accused him of ordering attacks against Israeli soldiers.
“He was killed yesterday evening... in a cowardly assassination operation,” the Al-Qassam Brigades posted on Telegram.
It said Younis was “among the most important commanders involved in the planning and supervision of the 7 October attack.”
A security source told AFP shortly after midnight that Younis died in a strike “targeting him moments ago in Al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis.”
Gaza’s civil defense spokesman, Mahmoud Bassal, told AFP the agency had received the body of Younis, 53, and said two people were wounded in the strike in Gaza’s south.