Amid its ongoing air and ground campaign in Gaza, renewed after the collapse of the ceasefire with Hamas earlier this month, Israel has conducted a string of assassinations of Hamas top leadership.
Hamas commander Ismail Barhoum was widely dubbed the ‘Prime Minister of Gaza’ and was killed Sunday night amid expanded airstrikes across the Strip. Israel’s military (IDF) said a ‘precision strike’ took him out at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.
An Israeli statement called him “key Hamas terrorist” – and the Palestinian group has since confirmed his death.
At the time of the strike on the hospital wing, Barhoum had been undergoing treatment for injuries sustained in a previous airstrike.
Israeli media had tallied that since last Tuesday, he’s the fourth member of Hamas’s political bureau to have been killed. Prime Minister Netanyahu has vowed to wipe out Hamas, and ensure it can never control Gaza again.
According to the Times of Israel, “Out of the 20 members of Hamas’s political bureau elected in 2021, 11 have been assassinated during the war in Gaza. Seven are either certain or highly likely to be outside the Gaza Strip.”
The war which has been going on since the Hamas terror attack of Oct.7, 2023 has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Gaza sources have announced a grim milestone on Monday:
More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s war with Hamas began, the territory’s health ministry said Sunday, a grim milestone for a war with no end in sight as Israel resumes fighting and warns of even tougher days ahead.
The ministry on Sunday reported 41 more deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the toll to 50,021.
Authorities in Gaza do not distinguish between civilians and Hamas fighters when reporting casualty figures, but the health ministry and the United Nations say the majority of deaths are women and children. And the true toll could be much higher, with many thousands believed to still be under the rubble.
These figures have been greatly disputed, especially in Israeli and American media. Israel has in the recent past said that some 17-20,000 among the total dead were Hamas fighters.
Leaked 2008 U.S. cable reveals Israel’s Gaza power blockade isn’t just a wartime measure—it’s part of a long-term strategy to restrict essential supplies and keep Gaza “on the brink of collapse” dating back well before Oct 7. Now, with Trump bypassing Israel to engage Hamas… pic.twitter.com/NDWaBStO7J
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 12, 2025
The White House earlier this month said it was notified in advance that the IDF would renew the Gaza bombing campaign. And on the question of the enclave’s future, US National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes has said: “Gaza is currently uninhabitable and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordinance.”
But it remains unclear whether President Trump will ultimately stick by his plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza. Regardless, it seems Israel is already trying to pursue this.
