DUBAI: Hamas top leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in combat, Khalil Al-Hayya, deputy Gaza Hamas chief and the group’s chief negotiator, confirmed on Friday.

The development comes after the Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz claimed on Thursday that Sinwar had been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.

Sinwar’s death, which follows Israeli assassinations of other Hamas leaders and commanders, will deal a huge blow to Hamas that has faced relentless air strikes since it attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader committed to eradicating Israel

Sinwar was named the group’s paramount leader on August 6, as a successor to former political chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran on July 31.

Widely known as the architect of the October 7, 2023 attack, the most devastating event for Israel in decades, Sinwar had been in Gaza, defying Israeli attempts to kill him since the start of Gaza crisis.

Born in a refugee camp in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, Sinwar, 62, was elected as Hamas’ leader in Gaza in 2017.

He spent half his adult life in Israeli prisons and was the most powerful Hamas leader left alive following the assassination of Haniyeh.

Yahya Sinwar threw stick at drone just before death

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was tracked by an Israeli mini drone as he lay dying in the ruins of a building in southern Gaza and filmed him slumped in a chair covered in dust, according to video released by Israeli authorities on Thursday.

As the drone hovered nearby, the video showed him throwing a stick at it.

Sinwar could be seen badly wounded in the hand, sitting on a chair, his face covered in a scarf. The film showed him attempting to throw a stick at the drone, in a futile effort to knock it down.