An Israeli air strike on the southern city of Khan Younis in Gaza has killed top Hamas political leader Salah al-Bardaweel, a Hamas official has told the BBC.
Locals say the air strike killed both Bardaweel, regarded as Hamas’s highest-ranking political leader, and his wife. Israeli officials had no immediate comment.
Health authorities in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory said at least 18 people had been killed in Khan Yunis and further south in Rafah so far on Sunday.
Israel resumed heavy strikes on Gaza earlier this week – in effect ending the first phase of a ceasefire that lasted almost two months. It blamed Hamas for rejecting a new US proposal to extend the truce.
Hamas, in turn, accused Israel of abandoning the original deal – mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the US. It envisaged the withdrawal of Israeli troops and the subsequent release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners – in addition to negotiations to end the war entirely and reconstruct Gaza.
In a statement on Sunday, Hamas said Bardaweel, 66, had been praying along with his wife when an Israeli missile struck their tent.
A father of eight, Bardaweel was one of Hamas’s most prominent political figures.
Born in Khan Younis refugee camp, he was known to be close to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and is considered part of the second generation of Hamas leadership, following the movement’s founders.
He headed the political wing of Hamas’s parliamentary bloc and was re-elected to the group’s political bureau in 2021.
Following the killing of Sinwar and Rawhi Mushtaha during the ongoing war, Bardaweel was regarded as Hamas’s highest-ranking political leader.
The air strike that killed Bardaweel was part of one of the most intense waves of aerial bombardment in southern Gaza since the collapse of the ceasefire agreement last Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society told the BBC that Israeli forces were surrounding several of the organisation’s ambulances as they attempted to reach an area hit by an Israeli strike in Rafah.
He added that several paramedics were wounded, and contact had been lost with one of the trapped teams, which has been besieged for hours.
The Israeli military issued evacuation orders for residents of the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood in western Rafah after the area was hit by heavy shelling and a limited ground assault.
The attack included tank fire from Israeli forces positioned along the Philadelphi Corridor on the border with Egypt, and helicopters also took part in the assault.
Alaa al-Din Sabah, a resident of the neighbourhood, said in a voice message to the BBC: “Bullets are raining down on us like it’s pouring. A woman was shot and is bleeding. Ambulances couldn’t reach her.”
“I can see one of the paramedics lying on the ground, screaming.”
The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.
More than 49,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since then, the Hamas-run health ministry says, and there is large-scale destruction to homes and infrastructure in the Strip.
