Gaza Strip, Jan. 24, 2025 - Hamas has begun informing the families of several senior figures that they were killed during the war with Israel, marking a rare acknowledgement of losses inside the group’s top ranks.
According to the report, the figures whose deaths were relayed to families included Rawhi Mushtaha, Samah al-Sarraj, Essam al-Dalis and Sami Odeh, all identified as members of Hamas’s political and security structure in Gaza. The report said the group also notified the family of Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing, that he had been killed in an Israeli strike. Israel had long said Issa was among the architects of the October 7, 2023 attack.
The confirmations matter because Hamas has generally been reluctant to confirm Israeli claims about the deaths of its leaders. By communicating the losses to relatives, the group signaled a shift from silence to partial acknowledgment. That does not resolve the question of the full extent of the organization’s losses, but it does suggest that Israel’s campaign has reached deep into Hamas’s leadership cadre.
Rawhi Mushtaha was described in the report as a possible political successor to Yahya Sinwar, who had led Hamas in Gaza. Other named figures were said to have held important political, security or financial roles. The report also said families in Gaza were being told about the deaths of additional field-level commanders, indicating that the losses were not limited to the most recognizable names.
The broader significance lies in the structure of the war itself. Israel has repeatedly said it has killed senior Hamas figures, but Hamas has often refused to publicly concede the point. When a movement built on secrecy starts passing death notices to relatives, it gives outside observers a rare glimpse into the scale of disruption inside its command system.
The report did not say whether the acknowledgments were public statements or private notifications, and it did not give a full list of all dead commanders. But it did show that Hamas had moved to confirm a series of high-profile deaths that had been circulating in wartime claims for months.
The report was notable because it described not just battlefield losses but the way Hamas handles internal accounting during war. Informing families of deaths is a private, organizational act, but in this case it served as the closest thing to confirmation for figures whose deaths had been claimed by Israel for months. That makes the acknowledgments important even if they were not formal public obituaries.
The names involved also matter. Several were described as holding political, security or financial posts, which means the losses were not confined to fighters in the field. If those accounts are accurate, the war has reached into the administrative and strategic layers of Hamas in Gaza, leaving the movement with fewer people who can both govern and plan.
The confirmations also suggest that the war has not only decapitated individuals but strained the continuity of leadership. When a movement has to inform families that senior political and military figures are dead, it is dealing with succession, morale and narrative control at the same time. The report offered a glimpse of that internal pressure.
The names reported as killed span different parts of Hamas’s structure, which makes the account more consequential than a single battlefield death notice. If a commander, a political coordinator and an official tied to financial or security work all died in the war, then the leadership losses are not just symbolic. They affect how the group can function day to day.
