Israel says Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar may have been killed when a separate attack hit a school in Gaza

Update: Israeli officials confirmed that the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed by IDF troops in Gaza. Read the latest here. Our previous story is below.

The Israeli military said it was working on Thursday to confirm whether Hamas’ top commander in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, was among the “three terrorists” killed by troops during an operation in the decimated Palestinian territory.

Prominent Israeli journalists, citing military and intelligence officials, quickly began reporting that Sinwar was killed almost accidentally on Wednesday when troops fired on three gunmen in or near the southern Gaza town of Rafah. According to the unconfirmed reports, a routine Israeli patrol discovered the men, killed them and then discovered that one of them looked like Sinwar.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a brief statement only that it was “examining the possibility that one of the terrorists was Yahya Sinwar. At this time the identity of the terrorists cannot be confirmed.”

There was no immediate comment from Hamas leadership on reports of Sinwar’s possible death.

A photo circulating on social media showed a dead man with a severe head wound who resembled the Hamas commander, but CBS News could not immediately verify the image. Since the inception of Hamas, Sinwar has been one of the most wanted figures on Israel’s target list October 7, 2023 cross-border terrorist attackAround 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

“In the building where the terrorists were eliminated, there were no signs of the presence of hostages in the area,” the IDF said Thursday.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant posted a cryptic message on social media on Thursday hinting at Sinwar’s possible killing. It showed photos of the slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the head of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deifwith red crosses on his face. A third photo between them remained blank, with another red cross above it. Israel killed both Nasrallah and Deif last year.

Gallant also included part of a quote that appears in the Jewish holy book, the Torah, and the Old Testament of the Bible: “And they pursued the enemy,” after which he said in his own words, “We will.” Reach out every terrorist – and eliminate them.”

It was not immediately confirmed where the operation took place in Gaza. This was announced hours after more than a dozen Palestinians, including children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school in Jabalia in the north Gaza Stripwhich, according to the Ministry of Health, housed displaced people in Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.

The IDF said in a statement that it had “attacked a compound that formerly served as the ‘Abu Hassan’ school” where “dozens of terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad organizations were present.”

The Health Ministry said at least 15 people were killed but did not say how many might have been militants.

The IDF released a list of a dozen names of suspected terrorists who it said were using the compound as a command and control center. It said the men, who were “involved in rocket attacks on Israeli territory as well as in the planning and execution of terrorist attacks against IDF troops and the State of Israel in recent days,” were the target of an intelligence-based “precision attack.”

The IDF did not say how many of the suspected terrorists were believed to have been killed in the attack, but said they were believed to have been at the school, which, like most in Gaza, has served as a refuge for displaced Palestinians for a year during the war “another example of the systematic abuse of civilian infrastructure by the terrorist organization Hamas in violation of international law.”

The military released photos and videos of weapons apparently taken by ground troops before Thursday’s attack and said to have been found in the school building – evidence, the IDF said, of a “full battle site.”

Israel recently warned Palestinians to leave the northern Gaza Strip, where its military operations have increased in recent weeks.

The strike came four days after the Biden administration sent a terse letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, warning that humanitarian conditions in the decimated Gaza Strip must improve within a month or Israel would risk having its continued supply of American weapons and war funding disrupted.

The White House has acknowledged Hamas’s frequent use of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure to store weapons and fighters, but stressed that civilians must continue to be protected and cannot be considered combatants if they are unable or unwilling to flee areas used by terrorist groups.

The US also made it clear in its letter to Israeli officials that the Biden administration was against the way Israel carried it out Parallel war against Hamas’s Hezbollah allies in Lebanon in the last few weeks. Israel says its operation in Lebanon is aimed at stopping Hezbollah’s years-long rocket and drone attack on Israel’s northern border. Hezbollah has said it will continue these attacks in support of Hamas until the war in Gaza ends.

According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 2,300 people and displaced most of the country’s population.

While Israel has taken steps to reverse the dramatic decline in humanitarian aid flowing to Gaza since receiving the Biden administration’s letter, the IDF continues to bombard Gaza and Lebanon with massive airstrikes this week, insisting that they are doing so in a legitimate manner acts in self-defense.

More than 42,400 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its war against Hamas on October 7 in response to a brutal attack by the United States and an Israeli-designated terrorist group, according to the Health Ministry.