Report: Israel investigating unlikely possibility that Hamas chief Sinwar has been killed in Gaza

Israel is investigating the possibility, though highly unlikely, that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is dead, following up on military intelligence, according to Israeli journalist Ben Caspit.

The Walla news site notes that the Shin Bet has rejected the report and believes that Sinwar is alive.

The intelligence being investigated holds that Sinwar was killed during IDF operations in Gaza.

Caspit quotes a source close to the matter as saying, “There have also been times in the past when he disappeared and we thought he was dead, but then he reappeared.”

Responding to the report, Israeli journalist Barak Ravid posts on X that officials with direct knowledge have told him Jerusalem doesn’t have intelligence that suggests the Hamas leader is dead.

“It is all hopes and guesses which are based on the fact the Sinwar has been incommunicado in recent weeks,” Ravid quotes one of the Israeli officials as saying.

Since Hamas’s October 7 massacre, believed to have been masterminded by Sinwar, Israel assassinated the terror group’s military wing chief Muhammad Deif and Khan Younis Brigade chief Rafa’a Salameh in an airstrike in Gaza in July and Deputy Hamas chief Saleh al-Arouri in a drone strike in Beirut in January. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was also killed in Tehran in July, in an attack widely blamed on Israel.