Reports say top Hamas commander, originally believed killed, will hand over hostage Keith Siegel

By Emanuel Fabian

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1 February 2025, 10:09 am

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Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent

Hamas and Islamic Jihad gunmen deploy and take up positions ahead of the release of hostages by Hamas in Gaza Feb. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem)

Palestinian media reports say that a Hamas commander who Israel previously claimed to have killed will be among those to hand over hostage Keith Siegel to the Red Cross in a short while.

The IDF in December 2023 said it killed Haitham Hawajri, the commander of Hamas’s Shati battalion.

It would not be the first time that the IDF has announced the death of a Hamas commander and later backtracked after determining that its intelligence at the time was not accurate.