In a targeted strike that has further escalated tensions amid a fragile current ceasefire, Israel announced Wednesday that it has killed Mohammed Odeh, the newly appointed leader of Hamas’s Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian militant group. Odeh’s assassination marks the fourth time Israel has eliminated the top commander of the Brigades since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, underscoring Israel’s sustained campaign to decapitate Hamas’s leadership structure.
Odeh was appointed to the role just weeks earlier, following the Israeli killing of his predecessor Ezzedine al-Haddad on May 15. The confirmation of his death came in a joint statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet domestic security agency, which noted Odeh was killed in a strike on Tuesday. Hamas later publicly confirmed Odeh’s death, referring to him as a martyred leader of the Palestinian resistance in a defiant statement that condemned the attack as a “cowardly assassination.”
The strike did not end with Odeh: the entire family was killed in the attack, including his wife and three children — two adult sons and a minor daughter. The assassination took place during Eid al-Adha, one of the most important religious holidays in the Muslim calendar. Bassem Abu Odeh, a cousin of the deceased leader, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Odeh and his family had been making preparations to celebrate the holiday when Israeli missiles struck their location. “They were ready to welcome Eid, but instead the criminal Zionists welcomed and targeted them with missiles,” he said.
On Wednesday, hundreds of mourners gathered in Gaza City for Odeh’s funeral. An AFP journalist on the ground reported that an AK-47 rifle was placed atop Odeh’s casket as the procession carried his body to a local mosque for traditional funerary prayers before burial.
Prior to taking command of the Brigades, Odeh served for years as the head of Hamas’s intelligence division and was one of the highest-ranking remaining Hamas leaders still operating in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz reacted to the killing with characteristic belligerence, writing on social media platform X that Odeh had been “sent to meet his associates in the depths of hell.”
The strike on Odeh came hours before the IDF announced another targeted operation in northern Gaza Wednesday evening, saying it had hit two senior Hamas operatives, identified by Israeli media as a brigade commander and his deputy. Local rescue officials from Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defence agency reported that the central Gaza City strike left 10 people dead and multiple others wounded, with a medical source confirming five children were among the fatalities.
Odeh’s assassination is the latest in a years-long, systematic Israeli campaign to eliminate top Hamas figures across the region, launched in response to Hamas’s October 7, 2023 cross-border attack that triggered the current war. Israel has already killed a long list of senior Hamas leadership in recent months: former political chief Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar — widely labeled the mastermind of the October 7 attack — longtime armed wing commander Mohammed Deif, and Mohammed Sinwar, who succeeded his brother Yahya as Hamas’s Gaza leader, have all been killed in Israeli strikes.
In his social media statement, Katz reaffirmed Israel’s commitment to eliminating all Hamas leaders responsible for the October 7 attack. “We committed ourselves to eliminating everyone who led the October 7 massacre, and that is what we will do: they are all marked for death, wherever they may be,” he wrote. IDF Arabic spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Ella Waweya echoed that messaging, joking that the position of Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades commander “has become the shortest-lived job in Gaza.” She added, “The question is no longer who’s next — but how long they have left.”
Katz also reiterated Israel’s core war goal of dismantling Hamas’s rule over Gaza, and alluded to a controversial Israeli plan to push for the forced displacement of Gaza’s civilian population. “The plan for voluntary migration from Gaza will also be implemented — everything will be done at the right time and in the right way,” he said. The displacement proposal is heavily backed by far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and gained brief support from former U.S. President Donald Trump before he walked back the position. The United Nations’ top human rights official, High Commissioner Volker Turk, condemned such plans in February, denouncing proposals “aimed at making a permanent demographic change in Gaza.”
Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group and key Hamas ally, released a statement of condolence following Odeh’s killing, dismissing Israeli efforts to break Palestinian resistance through leadership decapitation. “All Israeli attempts to undermine this resistance by targeting its leadership and fighters will end in failure,” the group said.
Despite a formal ceasefire that has been in place since October 10, daily violent incidents continue to rock the Gaza Strip, with both sides repeatedly accusing one another of truce violations. Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, whose casualty figures are deemed reliable by the United Nations, reports that more than 900 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military action since the ceasefire went into effect. Israel currently maintains full military control over roughly 60 percent of the Gaza Strip, including all border entry and exit points, while the vast majority of Gaza’s civilian population is confined to a narrow coastal strip.