Air strike kills top Hamas official in Gaza
Senior Hamas figure Salah al-Bardaweel, pictured here in 2015, was killed in Khan Younis
Rushdi Abu Alouf, Gaza correspondent reporting from Cairo
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.