Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’ military wing in Gaza and the alleged mastermind of the October 7 attack in southern Israel, was confirmed dead on Monday by a senior US official following an Israeli airstrike more than a week ago.
Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, told reporters that Mr. Issa, one of Hamas’ most senior officials, had been killed. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on March 11 that Israeli warplanes had targeted Mr. Issa and another senior Hamas official in an underground compound in central Gaza.
With his death, Mr. Issa, who was among Israel’s most wanted men, became the most senior Hamas leader to be killed in Gaza since the war began. Israeli officials hailed the strike as a major breakthrough in their campaign to eliminate Hamas’ leadership in Gaza.
However, experts warned that his death would not have a devastating effect on Hamas’ leadership structure. Israel has killed Hamas political and military leaders in the past, only to see them quickly replaced.
Here’s a closer look at Mr. Issa and what his death means for Hamas and its leadership.
What was Mr. Issa’s role in Hamas?
Mr. Issa, who was 58 or 59 at the time of his death, had served since 2012 as deputy to Mohammed Deif, the elusive leader of the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. Mr Issa took over the role after another top commander, Ahmed al-Jabari, was killed.
Mr. Issa served on both Hamas’s military council and its political office in Gaza, overseen by Yahya Sinwar, the group’s top official in the enclave. Mr. Issa was described by Palestinian analysts and former Israeli security officials as an important strategist who played a key role as a link between Hamas’ military and political leaders.
Salah al-Din al-Awawdeh, a Palestinian analyst close to Hamas, described Mr. Issa’s position in the group as “part of the first echelon of the leadership of the military wing.”
Major General Tamir Hayman, the former head of Israeli military intelligence, said Mr Issa was both Hamas’s “defense minister”, its deputy military commander and its “strategic mind”.
What does his death mean for the team?
Experts described Mr Issa as an important associate of Mr Deif and Mr Sinwar, although they said his death did not pose a threat to the group’s survival.
“There is always a replacement,” Mr Awawdeh said. “I don’t think the killing of any member of the military wing will have an effect on its operations.”
Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer and expert on Palestinian affairs, said Mr Issa’s death was a major blow to the Qassam Brigades, although he admitted it was not “the end of the world” for Hamas.
“He had a lot of experience,” Mr. Milshtein said. “His death is a great loss for Hamas, but it is not a loss that will lead to its collapse and will not affect it for a long time. In a week or two, they’ll get over it.”
Mr Milshtein added that although Mr Issa’s opinion was valued at the highest levels of Hamas, the fact that he did not directly command fighters meant that his death did not leave a void in Hamas operations.
How have they described him?
Mr. Issa was a lesser-known Hamas figure, keeping a low profile and rarely appearing in public.
Gerhard Konrad, a former German intelligence officer who met Mr Issa more than a decade ago, described him as a “resolute and quiet” person who lacked charisma. “He wasn’t very eloquent, but he knew what to say, and he was straight to the point,” Mr. Conrad said in an interview.
Mr Conrad said he met Mr Issa, Mr al-Jabari and Mahmoud al-Zahar, another senior Hamas official, about ten times between 2009 and 2011 in Gaza City. The men met as part of an effort to broker a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas.
“He was the data master for the inmates,” Mr. Conrad said of Mr. Issa. “He had all the names to negotiate.”
Mr. Conrad, however, said it was obvious at the time that Mr. Issa was under Mr. al-Jabari. “He was kind of a chief of staff,” he said.
It was only after Mr al-Jabari’s assassination that Mr Issa rose to prominence, but he still wanted to stay out of sight. Few images of Mr. Issa are in the public domain.
Mr. Awawdeh, the analyst, called Mr. Issa a man who liked to “stay in the shadows” and who rarely gave media interviews.
In one of those rare interviews, Mr. Issa spoke in 2021 about his role in the indirect talks that resulted in Israel exchanging more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for a single Israeli soldier, Sgt. First Class Gilad Shalit and his hopes for future conflict with Israel.
“Even if the resistance in Palestine is watched by the enemy at all hours, it will surprise the enemy,” he told Al Jazeera at the time.
In a separate interview with a Hamas publication in 2005, Mr. Issa praised the militants who raided Israeli settlements and military bases, calling the actions “heroic” and “advanced activity.”
What is known about his early life?
Mr. Issa was born in the Bureij district of central Gaza in 1965, but his family hails from what is now Ashkelon in Israel.
A member of Hamas for decades, he was involved in the militant group involved in hunting down Palestinians believed to have collaborated with Israel, according to Mr. Awawdeh.
Mr. Issa spent time in prisons operated by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Admiral Hagari said Mr Issa helped plan the October 7 attack led by Hamas. Mr. Issa is also believed to have planned operations aimed at infiltrating Israeli settlements during the second Intifada in the 2000s, Mr. Milshtein said.
March 18, 2024
:
An earlier version of this article misstated the last name of a former Israeli military intelligence chief. It’s Tamir Hayman, not Heyman.
How we handle corrections
