Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel had almost completed a key goal of the war in Gaza – eliminating all those responsible for orchestrating the October 7 attack.
His remarks followed the Israeli military’s announcement that Ezzedine al-Haddad, commander of Hamas’ armed wing, had been killed in an air strike in Gaza on Friday.
In the aftermath of the October 7 assault, Netanyahu pledged to target and eliminate the masterminds behind the attacks, which, according to an Agence France-Presse tally based on official Israeli figures, resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people.
“I promised that every single architect of the massacre and the hostage-taking would be eliminated down to the last one, and we are very close to completing this mission,” Netanyahu said during the weekly cabinet meeting, describing Haddad as a “despicable terrorist”.
Since Hamas’s cross-border assault, the Israeli military and intelligence services have waged a campaign targeting the group’s senior political leaders and militant commanders in Gaza and across the region.
During the war triggered by the Hamas attacks, Israel has claimed responsibility for assassinating several Hamas leaders, including the group’s former political chief Ismail Haniyeh.