Israeli military says it may have killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar

The Israeli military said on Thursday that it is checking the possibility that it has killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

During IDF operations in Gaza, three Hamas fighters were killed, the IDF said in a statement.

The Israel Defense Forces said it was examining the possibility that Sinwar was one of three fightes it killed “during IDF operations in Gaza”.

Sinwar has led Hamas within Gaza since 2017, having joined its ranks in the early 1980s.

It come as photographs have been circulating on social media today which claim to show Sinwar's dead body.

The images have not been independently verified.

Earlier in August, Hamas named Sinwar, one of the architects of the October 7 terror attack on Israel, as its new leader after Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination. 

Since Hamas’s October 7 attacks the Hamas leader has been hiding in underground tunnels beneath Gaza.

The overall Palestinian death toll since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza has reached at least 43,165 with more than 99,153 wounded. Thousands more remain trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings.