Marwan Issa: Shadowy Hamas ‘chief of staff’ who was a key mastermind of Oct. 7 attack
Terror group’s No.3, targeted by Israel in Sunday air strike, turned Qassam Brigades into organized force; first arrested in 1987, he has survived several assassination attempts
As deputy head of Hamas’s military wing, Marwan Issa has long been an elusive target for Israel, and the airstrike early Sunday morning that left both the IDF and Hamas probing his fate was the culmination of extensive efforts by the IDF to eliminate the senior terror commander.
Nicknamed the “Shadow Man” due to his ability to stay off Israel’s radar, the 59-year-old Gazan has played a significant role in a long string of terror attacks, starting from the time of the First Intifada and up to the massacre of some 1,200 people and kidnapping of 253 others in southern Israel on October 7 in the shock terror assault that left Israel reeling.
Due to the nature of his role as deputy head of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, making him second-in-command to the military wing’s leader Muhammed Deif, Issa is “essentially Hamas chief of staff,” former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told Channel 12 news on Monday evening.
Issa is the “liaison between the military wing and political wing of Hamas,” Yadlin added. “He was involved up to his neck in October 7; he’s one of the five men who knew in advance [about every aspect of October 7], if not the most central of them.”
Issa has the ear of Hamas officials in Gaza, the West Bank and in Qatar, former Shin Bet official Ilan Lotan told Channel 12, highlighting how integral his position is to the terror organization’s day-to-day operations.
In March 2023, Issa delivered a speech calling for Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to “lead the confrontation with the Israeli occupation.”
“We need to ignite the resistance action in all of Palestine and support it financially, morally and in the media,” he was quoted as having said by Qatari-owned New Arab news outlet.
In the same speech, he predicted that a “quake would hit the region” in the near future.
Issa was involved in the Qassam Brigades from the early days of its founding and played key roles in building and establishing it as a military organization rather than a loose-knit militia, according to the Kan public broadcaster. He ascended the ranks of the Hamas military wing, becoming Deif’s second in command in 2012 following the assassination of his predecessor Ahmed Jabari.
The Gazan terrorist spent time in both Israeli and Palestinian Authority prisons. He was first arrested by Israel in 1987 and spent five years in jail for his activities with Hamas during the First Intifada. After his release in 1993, he was arrested once more in 1997, this time by the PA, and spent an additional four years in prison before his release in 2000 at the start of the Second Intifada.
Issa is considered the number three in Hamas in Gaza after Deif and the terror group’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, who together are believed to have masterminded the October 7 massacre that triggered the ongoing war.
Prior to Sunday’s airstrike, Issa was the target of several unsuccessful assassination attempts, starting in 2006 when Israel targeted the location of a meeting he was attending along with Deif.
Issa was reported to have been injured in the attack, and Deif was said to have lost both his legs — although this assumption was cast into doubt in December when an unconfirmed report citing new IDF intelligence findings claimed that Deif is able to walk, albeit with a limp.
After the failed attempt on his life in 2006, Issa was the target of at least two other assassination attempts, once during the 2014 Gaza war and once during Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021. One of his four sons was reportedly killed in a December airstrike, a year after another son was said to have died after an unspecified illness went untreated.
Despite his senior position in Hamas, Issa has a reputation for staying out the public eye, and it was not until he was photographed after the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011 that the general public knew what he looked like.
The lack of publicly available information about Issa didn’t stop the United States from adding him to its terror watchlist in 2019. The European Union only followed suit in December 2023, when he was added to the watchlist along with Deif.
The EU said at the time that the decision regarding Issa and Deif was made in response “to the threat posed by Hamas and its brutal and indiscriminate terrorist attacks in Israel on 7 October 2023.”
