Sources close to Hamas said that a member of the movement’s military wing – the Al-Qassam Brigades – was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday in Gaza City.
The Hamas commander was reportedly a Syrian national known as Abu Omar al-Suri.
He was not well known in the Gaza Strip, but Hamas members said he was killed in an Israeli strike on Friday evening in the southern part of Gaza City, without providing further details.
According to Hamas-affiliated activists, Abu Omar came to Gaza from Syria in 2005. They praised him, saying he had brought a lot of military expertise to Gaza.
“There was no field in which he did not contribute; he established the training and development system, the al-Qassam Brigades Academy, and thanks to his expertise, thousands of fighters graduated. He introduced various types of scientific and technical expertise in several military specializations,” one source said.
Hamas activists said on messaging apps that Abu Omar’s technical expertise meant that he was one of the very few individuals who had a “genuine impact” on the capabilities of Palestinian armed groups in Gaza.
Later, Palestinian Telegram channels reported that Abu Omar al-Suri’s real name was Hakam al-Issa, but no official statement or obituary has yet been issued by the Al-Qassam Brigades or Hamas.
The Gaza-based Ministry of Health said that 81 people had been killed and at least 422 injured in the past 24 hours. The overall toll reported by the ministry since the Gaza war began in October 2023 now stands at 56,412, with 133,054 injured.
However, other estimates have reported a much higher number of casualties and tens of thousands of uncounted victims are believed to be trapped under rubble.
