IDF confirms Marwan Issa, Hamas’s No. 3, was killed in central Gaza strike
Military spokesman says another top terror commander, Ghazi Abu Tama’a, also killed in bombing of tunnel in Nuseirat on March 10
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
The Israel Defense Forces’ top spokesman on Tuesday confirmed that the deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing, Marwan Issa, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the central Gaza Strip earlier this month.
In a press conference, IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that after the military “looked into all the intelligence,” it could confirm that Issa was killed in the strike against a tunnel in central Gaza’s Nuseirat on March 10.
Alongside Issa, senior Hamas commander Ghazi Abu Tama’a was also killed in the strike, according to Hagari.
The United States previously announced that Issa was killed in the strike, although at the time, Israel said it was still evaluating the results of the bombing.
Issa was considered the number three in the terror organization in Gaza, and served as the deputy of Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Together with Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, they are believed to have masterminded the group’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war.
Known as the “Shadow Man,” Issa was long known for evading the IDF and rarely made public appearances.
He is the most senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip to be killed by Israel amid the ongoing war. Hamas’s deputy political leader, Salah al-Arouri, was assassinated by Israel in an airstrike in Lebanon’s capital Beirut in January.
Abu Tama’a is a former head of Hamas’s Central Camps Brigade and was tasked with being responsible “for all of Hamas’s weapons in Gaza,” according to the IDF.
War erupted when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists burst into Israel by air, land and sea, killing close to 1,200 people and kidnapping another 253 to Gaza, where more than 100 are still held hostage.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel responded with a wide-scale ground and air campaign that the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said has now killed more than 32,000 people. These figures cannot be independently verified, and are believed to include both civilians and Hamas members killed in Gaza, including as a consequence of terror groups’ own rocket misfires. The IDF says it has killed over 13,000 terror operatives in Gaza since the war started, in addition to some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
