IDF says it ‘almost certainly’ found Muhammad Sinwar’s body in Khan Younis tunnel

One of the bodies the IDF pulled out of a tunnel in Khan Younis over the weekend is “almost certainly” Hamas military leader Muhammad Sinwar, says IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin.

The IDF extracted 4 other bodies from a tunnel under Khan Younis’s European Hospital, including — the military believes — Rafah brigade commander Muhammed Shabaneh.

The Times of Israel toured the tunnel earlier today.

The IDF’s 36th Division takes The Times of Israel into the tunnel where the military believes Hamas military chief Muhammad Sinwar was killed last month, under the European Hospital in Khan Younis, June 8, 2025. (Lazar Berman/The Times of Israel)

Muhammad Sinwar was the younger brother of the former Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar. The younger Sinwar was killed in an Israeli strike on the tunnel system on May 13.

Israeli hostages were likely held in the tunnel as well at some point, says Maj. N., a company commander in the Golani Brigade’s elite reconnaissance company.

“This was one of the command and control centers that Hamas used to carry out the October 7 attacks on the Gaza border communities, the slaughter and the murder,” says Defrin, addressing Israeli military reporters above an entrance to the tunnel.

Turning to the new US- and Israeli-backed humanitarian aid effort in Gaza, Defrin says that Israel, “as opposed to Hamas, is feeding the population, and we will do everything to open these distribution sites.”

“We are giving out tens of thousands of boxes of food a day, which have reached millions of people already,” he continues. “It works and we will continue to do it. It undermines Hamas’s rule, it pulls the rug out from under its feet, and it’s working.”

The purpose of the ongoing ground operation, says Defrin, “is bringing back the hostages and bringing down Hamas’s rule.”