Israeli military says Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar may have been ...

The Israeli military said on Thursday that it was checking the possibility that it has killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar following an operation in the Gaza Strip that it said had targeted three militants.

"At this stage, the identity of the terrorists cannot be confirmed," it said in a statement.

It said there were no signs that Israeli hostages had been present in the building where the three militants were killed.

There was no immediate comment from Hamas. Al-Majd, a Hamas-linked website that usually publishes about security issues, urged Palestinians to wait for information about Sinwar from the group itself and not Israeli media outlets, which it said was aimed at breaking their spirit.

Israel's Army Radio said the incident had occurred during a targeted ground operation in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, during which Israeli troops killed three militants and took their bodies.

It said visual evidence suggested it was likely one of the men was Sinwar and that DNA tests were being conducted. Israel has samples of Sinwar's DNA from his period in an Israeli jail.

Members of Israel's security cabinet have been informed that Sinwar is very likely dead, two officials with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Thursday.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant posted a message on X with a biblical quotation from the Book of Leviticus: "You will pursue your enemies and they will fall before you by the sword."

"Our enemies cannot hide. We will pursue and eliminate them," Gallant added.

If confirmed, the death of Sinwar would represent a major boost to the Israeli military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a string of high-profile assassinations of prominent leaders of its enemies in recent months.

WATCH l August interview with analyst on 'ruthless' Sinwar: 

Get the latest on CBCNews.ca, the CBC News App, and CBC News Network for breaking news and analysisArchitect of Oct. 7 attacks

Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, including several Canadian citizens, while taking more than 250 hostages into Gaza, according to Israeli government tallies. Israel believes about 100 hostages have yet to be repatriated, with about one-third of those believed to have died.

Dave Harden, the founder of Georgetown Strategy Group and a former U.S. official based in the region, called the possible death of Sinwar an "inflection point" in the yearlong war or for those still in captivity.

"The thing I would watch for next, is what [will] Hamas do with the hostages if anything," Harden told CBC News Network.

Hamas could kill some or all of the remaining hostages, Harden said, but there is the possibility the development could be an "offramp" for Hamas's senior figures in Qatar or elsewhere to negotiate with the Israelis.

Israel's campaign in response has killed 42,438 Palestinians and injured 99,246 more, according to Gaza's health ministry. The count from the ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians, but the Gaza health ministry has said thousands of women and children have been killed in airstrikes. 

WATCH l WHO raises concerns about famine in Gaza:

WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday that humanitarian groups have been unable to reach northern Gaza to provide food and medical supplies as Israeli troops press on in the region for nearly two weeks.

On Thursday, several Palestinians, including children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a shelter in the northern Gaza Strip, a Gaza health ministry official said, while Israel said the attack targeted militants at the site.

Sinwar, the chief architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, has been at the top of Israel's wanted list ever since. But he has so far eluded detection, possibly hiding in the warren of tunnels Hamas has built under Gaza over the past two decades.

Previously the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Sinwar was named as its overall leader following the assassination of former political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran, in August.

Israel also killed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement, in Beirut last month, as well as much of the top leadership of the group's military wing.

International Criminal Chourt chief prosecutor Karim Khan in May asked for arrest warrants for Sinwar, Haniyeh and military commander Mohammed Deif for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and the taking of hostages during the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. The Israeli military said in August that it believed Deif was killed earlier in the summer.

Freed in exchange after 23 years in prison

Sinwar was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp in 1962. He rose to prominence as the head of the Al-Majd security apparatus, which tracked and killed Palestinians accused of providing information on Hamas to Israel's secret service.

He was arrested in 1988 and sentenced to consecutive life terms, accused of planning the abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers and the murder of four Palestinians.

While imprisoned, Israeli medics performed surgery on Sinwar to remove a brain tumour, Yuval Bitton, previously head of the Israel Prison Service's intelligence division, has said.

In 2011, he was one of 1,027 Palestinians released from Israeli prisons in a swap for a single Israeli soldier — Gilad Shalit, who by then had spent five years in captivity after being captured in a cross-border raid.

Despite his 23 years imprisoned, Sinwar's militancy was on display at an anti-Israel rally in December 2022 in Gaza.

"We will come to you, God willing, in a roaring flood," he said in his address. "We will come to you with endless rockets, we will come to you in a limitless flood of soldiers, we will come to you with millions of our people, like the repeating tide."