The deputy to former Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif has been eliminated, a senior Hamas official said.

Top official Osama Hamdan confirmed Marwan Issa’s death, in an interview with Hezbollah-owned Al Manar TV on Sunday night.

“The dowry for liberating Palestine was the blood of these great leaders,” Hamdan said, listing several other Hamas and Hezbollah leaders eliminated by the IDF.

“In Palestine - Brother Abu Al-Abd, Brother Yahya Sinwar, Brother Marwan Issa, or other leaders like Sheikh Saleh Al-Arouri - and in Lebanon, His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, His Eminence Sayyed Hashim Safieddin, Hajj Abdul Qadir, Sayyed Mohsen, and other senior leaders whom we knew and experienced their sincerity.”

Issa was targeted in an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip in March of last year, with the IDF later confirming he had been killed.

An IDF infographic about Marwan Issa, deputy head of Hamas's al-Qassam Brigades. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)
An IDF infographic about Marwan Issa, deputy head of Hamas's al-Qassam Brigades. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)
Israel has accused Issa of participating in planning the October 7 massacre in Israel, and he was reportedly involved in the 2011 Gilad Schalit hostage-prisoner swap.

In his interview, Hamdan stated that Hamas’s victory lies in the fact that Israel participated in any negotiations at all.“[Israel] wanted to recover their prisoners by force, but now they’re recovering them through negotiations,” Hamdan said, “they cannot recover any of them alive except through these negotiations.”

The 'high price'

While sources previously claimed that Hamas confirmed Issa’s death behind closed doors shortly after the strike that killed him in March, this was the first time an official acknowledged the strike, with Hamdan referring to the many terror leaders eliminated by the IDF as the “high price” that is necessary for the organization’s “great mission.”