Hamas confirms its leader Yahya Sinwar's death, says it won't free hostages until Israel stops war on Gaza

The news was confirmed by Khalil Al-Hayya, deputy Gaza Hamas chief and the group's chief negotiator.

Soon after confirming the death, Hamas  Friday said it won't release hostages until Israel ends its war on Gaza, withdraws from the territory and frees jailed Palestinians.

The hostages "will not return... unless the aggression against our people in Gaza stops, there is a complete withdrawal from it, and our heroic prisoners are released from the occupation's prisons," Khalil al-Haya said in a video statement, as quoted by AFP reported.

Israel Thursday claimed that its military executed Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar during an operation in Gaza.

"The mass murderer Yahya Sinwar, responsible for the massacre and atrocities of October 7, was eliminated... by IDF (Israeli military) soldiers," Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement as quoted by NDTV.

The military reportedly confirmed that "after a year-long pursuit", soldiers "eliminated Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Hamas terrorist organisation, in an operation in the southern Gaza Strip" on Wednesday.

Hamas has not confirmed his death.

The execution of Sinwar is a major boost to the Israeli military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a string of high-profile assassinations of prominent Hamas leaders in recent months.

Israel's Army Radio said the incident had occurred during a targeted ground operation in Rafah along the southern Gaza Strip during which Israeli troops killed three militants and took their bodies.

Earlier, the Israeli military said the visual evidence suggested it was likely that one of the terrorists killed was Sinwar and DNA tests were being conducted.

Israel has samples of Sinwar's DNA from his period in an Israeli jail.

Yahya Sinwar, the chief architect of the Oct 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war, has been at the top of Israel's wanted list ever since. But he had managed to elude detection by possibly hiding in the warren of tunnels that Hamas has built under Gaza over the past two decades.

Previously leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, he was named as its overall leader following the assassination of former political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in August.

Last month, Israel also killed Hasan Nasrallah, leader of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement, in Beirut besides executing many of the group's top leadership.

Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel on Oct 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages into Gaza. In a retaliatory action, Israel has killed more than 42,000 people, turned much of Gaza into rubble, and displaced most of its population.