IDF targets Yahya Sinwar's successor, Hamas Gaza leader Ali al-Amoudi, in strike

Jerusalem Post/Israel News/Defense NewsIDF attack helicopters and tanks struck targets in Gaza on Saturday in an operation aimed at killing Ali al-Amoudi, who succeeded Yahya Sinwar as Hamas's leader in the Gaza Strip.Follow us on GoogleSmoke and flames rise from a house during an Israeli strike, carried out after the IDF warned residents to evacuate the area, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, September 9, 2026. (photo credit: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed)OCTOBER 3, 2026 11:35The IDF attempted to kill Ali al-Amoudi, Yahya Sinwar's successor as Hamas's leader in the Gaza Strip, during an operation on Saturday morning that included attacks by helicopters and tanks.At around 8 a.m., reports said that the IDF had opened fire with an attack helicopter and tanks at suspicious targets that had approached the Yellow Line. It later emerged that the target of the operation was Hamas's current leader in the Gaza Strip.Amoudi was released from an Israeli prison in the 2011 Gilad Schalit prisoner exchange after serving nearly 20 years in prison.Following his release, Amoudi was elected to Hamas's political bureau. At the same time, he served as the head of the office of Yahya Sinwar, with whom he had been imprisoned and who was also released in the Schalit deal. Amoudi subsequently became one of Sinwar's closest associates.Before being appointed as Sinwar's successor, Amoudi was responsible for leading the Palestinian propaganda apparatus during the war. The campaign, as previously noted, achieved considerable success in Europe and the United States.Palestinian women look from a damaged house at the site of an Israeli strike on a house that was pre-warned by the Israeli military to evacuate, before the strike was carried out late on Thursday at Shati (Beach) refugee camp, in Gaza City, May 29, 2026. (credit: REUTERS/DAWOUD ABU ALKAS)Al-Amoudi rises after Sinwar's deathA leadership vacuum emerged after Sinwar was killed in October 2024. Several senior Hamas officials who remained alive then assumed control of the Gaza Strip, led by Amoudi, who became the enclave's de facto leader while remaining largely outside public awareness.Amoudi formally took up the position in July.Follow us on Google