Israel “most likely” killed Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday.
“We eliminated tens of thousands of terrorists,” Netanyahu said at a press conference in Jerusalem, CNN reported. “We eliminated the leaders of the murderers Deif, Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar and most likely Mohammad Sinwar.”
Sinwar was among those targeted last Tuesday by Israeli strikes on a Gaza hospital in the city of Khan Younis. Israel claimed that Sinwar was hiding in an underground bunker.
The strikes killed 28 Palestinians and wounded more than 50 others, according to the Hamas-run Civil Defense agency. It was unclear immediately afterward of Sinwar was also killed.
Sinwar’s brother was former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who Israel killed last fall in Gaza.
Netanyahu maintains that Israel will not stop its revamped military operation in Gaza.
“Our forces are capturing more and more territory in Gaza,” he said. “At the end of the operation all areas of the Strip will be under Israeli security control.”
This, even as the head of the World Health Organization warns that Israel’s military’s operations and the resulting evacuation orders are pushing Gaza’s health system to the brink.
“Even if health facilities are not attacked or forced to evacuate, hostilities and military presence obstruct patients and staff from accessing care, and WHO from resupplying hospitals, which can quickly make them non-functional,” Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus told the BBC.
“We’ve seen this too many times—it must not be allowed to happen again.”
The hospital in Khan Younis, which is inside an evacuation zone, has been nonfunctioning since the Israeli strikes on May 13.
Doctors working in nearby hospitals have sounded the alarm as well.
British surgeon Dr. Victoria Rose said in an Instagram video Wednesday that she’s concerned about Nasser hospital being forced to cease operations or cut off from the rest of the city.
“We have some amazing field hospitals… but none of them are capable of doing the type of surgery that we’re doing here. And none of them have ICU capacity or generated oxygen. So, even all of them together couldn’t cope with the amount of patients that we have,” she said.
“If Nasser is evacuated, we really are looking at the imminent death of hundreds of patients because we won’t be able to take them anywhere.”
The post Netanyahu Says Hamas Leader Mohammed Sinwar ‘Likely’ Dead appeared first on The Daily Beast.
