The Israeli army and Hamas are trying to determine whether Marwan Issa, deputy head of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the Palestinian movement’s military wing, was actually killed in an air strike in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday night.
Israel’s Channel 12 said: “Three days after the unusually strong attack in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in the center of the Gaza Strip, Israel still does not know for sure whether Issa was killed.”
Hamas, which has not yet commented on the report, is facing difficulties to communicate and verify any information, in light of the massive destruction caused by the strike.
Issa is the most important figure to be targeted since the beginning of the war. He is considered the No. 3 on the Israel’s Hamas wanted list, after Muhammad al-Deif, the commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, and Yahya al-Sanwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza. Saleh Al-Arouri, the fourth on the list, was assassinated by Israel in Lebanon in January.
Marwan Abdel Karim Issa was born in 1965 in the Bureij refugee camp in Gaza. He grew up in the camp and received his education in UNRWA schools, before receiving his university education at the Islamic University. He was a distinguished athlete and excelled in playing basketball in the camp services club.
Issa belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood in his early youth, shortly before the announcement of the founding of the Hamas movement, which he later joined.
He was arrested by Israeli forces in 1987 and was released in 1993. He continued to suffer from Israeli persecution, until he was arrested in 1997 by the Palestinian security services. He was freed with the eruption of the second Al-Aqsa Intifada at the end of 2000.
He engaged in the Hamas movement and Al-Qassam Brigades, until he became a prominent military figure. He was later appointed commander of the Central Region Brigade before becoming a member of the Military Council and then secretary of the council, until he reached his current position, deputy commander of the Al-Qassam Brigades, following the assassination of Ahmed Al-Jaabari in 2012.
Issa survived numerous assassination attempts and had been fighting cancer for many years.
His health had deteriorated and persistent attempts were made before the October 7 war to take him out of the Gaza Strip in order to receive treatment.
