By: Fern Sidman

The Islamist terror organization Hamas has acknowledged one of the most devastating blows in its history, confirming the deaths of five of its most senior leaders — a revelation that illustrates the depth of its battlefield losses and signals a potential inflection point in the Gaza war. According to a report that appeared on Monday evening on Fox News Digital, the announcement marks a watershed moment for the group, which for months has sought to obscure the scale of its internal collapse under relentless Israeli military pressure.

The admission was delivered in a carefully worded statement released Monday by Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Yet the language, while triumphant in tone, could not mask the extraordinary reality it conveyed: Hamas’s senior wartime command structure has been systematically dismantled.

Fox News Digital reported that among the five confirmed dead is Mohammed al-Sinwar, brother of the late Hamas supreme leader Yahya al-Sinwar. Mohammed al-Sinwar had emerged as one of the most influential figures in Gaza following the deaths of several high-ranking commanders earlier in the war, and was widely perceived by Israeli intelligence analysts as a linchpin of Hamas’s remaining operational leadership.

Al-Sinwar’s death had already been claimed by the Israel Defense Forces in May, following a massive airstrike on a subterranean Hamas command complex located beneath the European Hospital in Khan Younis. At the time, Israeli officials said the site was being used as a nerve center for Hamas battlefield coordination — a claim Hamas angrily denied. Now, as the Fox News Digital report emphasized, Hamas itself has conceded that al-Sinwar was indeed killed earlier this year, though it declined to specify the precise date.

The significance of his demise cannot be overstated. As Yahya al-Sinwar’s brother and heir apparent within the organization’s military-political hierarchy, Mohammed al-Sinwar had become a central architect of Hamas’s wartime strategy. His elimination deprives the group not only of a seasoned commander but of a symbolically potent figure whose lineage lent him immense legitimacy within the movement.

Perhaps even more startling is Hamas’s confirmation of the death of Abu Obeida — the shadowy masked spokesman who became the most recognizable face of the al-Qassam Brigades during the conflict. For the first time, Hamas disclosed his real identity: Hudhayfa Samir Abdullah al-Kahlout.

The Fox News Digital report, citing Reuters, noted that Israeli authorities had announced Abu Obeida’s death months ago, stating he was killed in a targeted strike in Gaza City in late August. Until now, Hamas had refused to confirm the report, fueling speculation that the iconic figure remained alive. His public appearances — always masked, always flanked by weaponry — were designed to project invincibility. His confirmed death punctures that carefully cultivated myth.

For many Palestinians, Abu Obeida was not merely a spokesman but a rallying symbol — the voice of Hamas’s “resistance.” For Israel, he was a propaganda architect whose removal strikes at the psychological heart of the organization.

Also confirmed dead is Raed Saad, one of Hamas’s most senior field commanders. Fox News Digital referenced reporting from the Times of Israel that indicated that Saad had been tracked for months through Gaza’s labyrinthine tunnel network before being killed in a precision strike in December.

Israeli security officials had described Saad as one of the principal planners of the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, in which approximately 1,200 people were murdered and more than 250 abducted into Gaza. His death therefore represents not only a tactical success but a symbolic reckoning — the removal of a man widely viewed in Israel as a chief architect of the worst atrocity in the country’s history.

Hamas also acknowledged the deaths of Mohammed Shabanah, head of its Rafah Brigade, and Hakam al-Issa, a veteran commander and one of the founding members of the al-Qassam Brigades. According to the Fox News Digital report, Shabanah was killed in a separate Israeli strike earlier this year, while al-Issa died in attacks on Gaza City’s Sabra neighborhood.

The combined effect of these losses is staggering. Rafah and Gaza City represented Hamas’s last operational bastions — hubs from which the group sought to regroup after losing control of northern Gaza and Khan Younis. With the commanders of both regions now confirmed dead, Hamas’s ability to coordinate operations, enforce discipline, and project authority has been gravely compromised.

What renders these confirmations all the more remarkable is their timing. They come despite a ceasefire that took effect in October — a lull that Hamas likely hoped would obscure the extent of its degradation. Instead, Fox News Digital reported that the admissions suggest Hamas has been forced to acknowledge reality: its senior leadership is gone.

Military analysts speaking to Fox News Digital say this public reckoning is an attempt by Hamas to manage expectations among its supporters. With so many revered figures eliminated, rumors of betrayal, internal purges, and operational paralysis have proliferated. The leadership, it seems, has chosen controlled disclosure over continued denial.

The strategic reverberations of Hamas’s announcement were amplified on the world stage Monday when President Trump, following a high-profile meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, delivered a stark ultimatum.

“They’re going to be given a very short period of time to disarm,” Trump declared, according to the Fox News Digital report. “If they don’t, there will be hell to pay.”

The president made clear that the next phase of the Gaza peace plan hinges entirely on Hamas laying down its weapons — a condition he described as non-negotiable. His remarks came as Hamas’s command structure lay in ruins, its credibility eroding by the day.

Fox News Digital reported that defense experts view Hamas’s confirmation as tacit recognition that the organization is now operating in survival mode. The systematic targeting of its senior commanders has not merely disrupted its battlefield capabilities; it has destabilized its internal cohesion.

For decades, Hamas relied on a tightly knit hierarchy anchored by charismatic leaders, seasoned militants, and ideological standard-bearers. That scaffolding is now fractured. The deaths of al-Sinwar, Abu Obeida, Saad, Shabanah, and al-Issa leave a vacuum that cannot easily be filled, particularly under the watchful eye of Israeli intelligence.

As the Fox News Digital report emphasized, the coming weeks will test whether Hamas can adapt to this unprecedented decapitation. Trump’s warning has injected urgency into negotiations over Gaza’s future, while Israel’s operational successes have reshaped the strategic calculus on the ground.

What remains uncertain is whether Hamas will heed the ultimatum to disarm or retreat further into defiance. What is clear, however, is that the organization emerging from this phase of the war is not the Hamas that orchestrated October 7.

Its architects are dead. Its voice is silenced. Its leadership is shattered. And, as Fox News Digital reported, the era of Hamas as a coherent, centralized terror force may be drawing to a close.