Israel is touting the death of a Hamas commander as a major shift, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday putting it out there that they are not far from wiping out the ones behind the October 7 attacks. This comes in the wake of an airstrike in Gaza on Friday that put an end to Ezzedine Al-Haddad.
Netanyahu signals a near-finish to leadership hunt
In front of his cabinet for their weekly session, Netanyahu made it clear they are about to check off a key war aim: going after the people who put together the October 7 incursion. “I have given my word that we will see to it that every one of the architects of the massacre and the abductions is done away with, and we are well on our way to that,” he said, not mincing words when he called Haddad a “despicable terrorist.”
A campaign built on targeted strikes
It’s been a running game for the Israeli military and its intelligence arm to track down top Hamas brass in Gaza and beyond since the cross-border incident. The army has identified Haddad as a commander in the group’s military side.
They’ve put a number of Hamas chiefs in the ground over the course of this war. You have Yahya Sinwar, who most would say was the chief of staff for the October 7 plan, and then Mohammed Deif, the old hand at the head of Hamas’s armed wing and another of the planners.
All of this goes back to what Netanyahu put on the table after the October 7 events, which an AFP count puts at 1,221 dead in Israel. With the Haddad hit, he is making a case that they are living up to that.
Territory control and shifting front lines
Netanyahu also put a number on it: 60 percent of Gaza is under the control of his forces. It’s part of a broader push, as some in the government see it, to put the screws to Hamas.
You hear talk of a new ‘Orange Line’ being pushed for. Before the U.S.-arranged truce of October 10, the plan was for an Israeli pullback to a ‘Yellow Line’, but even then they held onto over half of Gaza.
Toll of the war and accountability debates
On the other side of the line, the Gaza health ministry – run by Hamas – has a body count of more than 72,700 since last year, the bulk of them non-combatants. The U.N. has no issue with those numbers.
What to watch next
But for the Israeli side, you can’t have another October 7 if you don’t take out the leadership. "We have Hamas in our grip,” is how Netanyahu put it. “To make sure Gaza is no longer a threat to us.”
Israel’s assertions set up several immediate tests for the conflict’s next phase:
– Verification of leadership elimination claims
– The scope of territorial control in Gaza
– Compliance with ceasefire demarcations
– Impact on civilian harm and access
– Signals from Hamas about chain of command
