Israel confirms top Hamas official killed in strike on Gaza hospital

The IDF and Shin Bet confirm that top Hamas official Ismail Barhoum was targeted and killed in a strike on Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis last night.

Not long after the strike, Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Barhoum had been eliminated. Hamas also made an announcement.

According to the military and Shin Bet, Barhoum, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, was chief of the terror group’s finances and the successor to Issam Da’alis, the de-facto prime minister of Gaza, who was killed last week.

“Barhoum was a key figure in Hamas’ political bureau and was actively involved in the military decision-making process that directly impacted Hamas’ operations,” the joint statement says.

The IDF and Shin Bet say that he oversaw Hamas’s “financial management in the Gaza Strip, channeling funds to Hamas’s military wing, financing and planning the execution of terror attacks against the State of Israel. These funds financed the organization’s continued survival in the Gaza Strip and were used to carry out terror attacks and to purchase weapons, which posed a threat to Israeli civilians.”

While Hamas had claimed that Barhoum was at Nasser Hospital for medical treatment after being wounded in a previous strike, the IDF says he was operating from within the medical center.

“This is yet another example of the way that the Hamas terrorist organization systematically violates international law while taking over civilian infrastructure in a manner that prevents the rehabilitation and livelihood of the Gazan population, and while brutally exploiting the civilian population as a human shield for its terror attacks against the State of Israel,” the statement adds.