Israel Kills Hamas Military Chief Mohammed Odeh in Gaza City Strike
Israel carried out a strike in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday evening targeting new Hamas military chief Mohammed Odeh, 11 days after killing his predecessor Ezz al-Din al-Haddad. Three people were killed and 20 wounded in the strike in the Rimal neighbourhood of western Gaza City. A joint statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz called Odeh “one of the architects of the October 7 massacre”, saying he was head of Hamas intelligence during the October 7, 2023 attacks. Odeh was appointed last week to succeed al-Haddad as Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip and chief of its military wing. Initial Israeli assessments indicated the strike was successful.
Despite the ceasefire in place in Gaza since October, Israel has kept up its campaign against the perpetrators of the October 7 attacks, with reporting last week that Israel has compiled a list of all Palestinians who took part in the attack and is working to kill or arrest each one. Some 900 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since the October truce, according to Gaza health officials. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed by militants during the same period. Odeh was close to al-Haddad and worked with him to “renew the organisational structure” of Hamas following the assassination of its former leaders Muhammad Deif and Muhammad Sinwar earlier in the war. Israel and Hamas remain deadlocked in indirect talks over implementing the second phase of the ceasefire deal, which includes the group’s disarmament and Israeli army withdrawals.