Hamas has confirmed that a senior commander who helped plan and oversee the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel was killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza on Saturday.
The commander was Samir Abu Younis, 53, the head of the Rafah brigade of Hamas’s armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades. Hamas said he was killed in a strike on a street in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, and that other people were wounded. His funeral is to be held on Sunday afternoon in Khan Younis.
The Israeli military said on Sunday that it had struck a senior commander in Hamas’s armed wing, but it did not identify him by name. Al Jazeera reported that the strike was carried out by a drone.
According to Hamas, Abu Younis joined its armed wing in 1991 and held several senior operational roles in Rafah before becoming commander of the brigade. The group said he played a part in planning and overseeing the October 7, 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led fighters killed around 1,200 people in Israel and took about 250 hostages.
The killing comes more than a month after a ceasefire took effect in Gaza in October 2025. The truce halted the major fighting, but it has not stopped Israeli strikes or secured Hamas’s disarmament, and attacks have continued on both sides of the deal.
Just three days earlier, an Israeli strike hit a building at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, killing at least six people, including a surgeon. Israel said it had targeted a Hamas commander sheltering in the hospital; Hamas denied using the hospital for military purposes.
The death of the Rafah brigade commander is one of the most senior Hamas losses since the ceasefire began, and it underlines how fragile the truce remains as talks over the next phase of the deal continue.
