Hamas has confirmed that its military chief, Mohammed Deif, was killed in an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip last year.
Israel’s military said in August that it had killed Deif the previous month, but Hamas had not confirmed this until now.
Israel says Deif was one of the figures responsible for planning the 7 October attacks in southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.
Deif was widely seen as the second-ranking Hamas official in Gaza, behind Yahya Sinwar, the group’s leader in the territory, who was also killed by Israeli forces last year.
Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) last year issued an arrest warrant for Deif, alongside Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant.
In its statement on Thursday, Hamas also announced the death of deputy military commander Marwan Issa.
The US announced Issa’s death in March last year.
Issa was the deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing and was considered one of Israel’s most-wanted men. The European Union, which placed the Hamas leader on its terrorist blacklist, linked him directly to the 7 October attack.
