The Israeli navy has confirmed that Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’s navy wing in Gaza and a presumed mastermind of the Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel, was killed in an Israeli airstrike earlier this month.
A senior U.S. official, Jake Sullivan, had beforehand informed reporters that Mr. Issa, one of many highest-ranking officers in Hamas, had been killed. However earlier than Tuesday’s assertion, Israel’s navy had mentioned solely that its warplanes had focused Mr. Issa and one other senior Hamas official in an underground compound in central Gaza.
Along with his demise, Mr. Issa, who had been amongst Israel’s most wished males, grew to become the senior-most Hamas chief to be killed in Gaza for the reason that begin of the warfare. Israeli officers have characterised the strike as a breakthrough of their marketing campaign to wipe out the Hamas management in Gaza.
However specialists cautioned that his demise — which Hamas has nonetheless not acknowledged — wouldn’t have a devastating impact on the armed group’s management construction. Israel has killed Hamas’s political and navy leaders up to now, solely to see them shortly changed.
Here’s a nearer take a look at Mr. Issa and what his demise means for Hamas and its management.
What was Mr. Issa’s function in Hamas?
Mr. Issa, who was 58 or 59 on the time of his demise, had served since 2012 as a deputy to Mohammed Deif, the elusive chief of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s navy wing. Mr. Issa assumed the function after the assassination of one other prime commander, Ahmed al-Jabari.
Mr. Issa served each on Hamas’s navy council and in its Gaza political workplace, overseen by Yahya Sinwar, the group’s highest-ranking official within the enclave. Mr. Issa was described by Palestinian analysts and former Israeli safety officers as an vital strategist who performed a key function as a liaison between Hamas’s navy and political leaders.
Salah al-Din al-Awawdeh, a Palestinian analyst near Hamas, described Mr. Issa’s place within the group as “a part of the entrance rank of the navy wing’s management.”
Maj. Gen. Tamir Hayman, the previous Israeli navy intelligence chief, mentioned Mr. Issa was concurrently Hamas’s “protection minister,” its deputy navy commander and its “strategic thoughts.”
What does his demise imply for the group?
Specialists described Mr. Issa as an vital affiliate of Mr. Deif and Mr. Sinwar, although they mentioned his demise didn’t symbolize a menace to the group’s survival.
“There’s at all times a substitute,” Mr. Awawdeh mentioned. “I don’t assume the assassination of any member of the navy wing will impact its actions.”
Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli navy intelligence officer and an knowledgeable on Palestinian affairs, mentioned Mr. Issa’s demise was a big blow to the Qassam Brigades, although he conceded it wasn’t “the top of the world” for Hamas.
“He had a whole lot of expertise,” Mr. Milshtein mentioned. “His demise is an enormous loss for Hamas, however it isn’t a loss that may result in its collapse and it received’t have an effect on it for a very long time. In every week or two, they’ll overcome it.”
Mr. Milshtein added that although Mr. Issa’s opinion was valued on the highest ranges of Hamas, the very fact he didn’t instantly command fighters meant his demise didn’t go away a gaping gap in Hamas’s operations.
How has he been described?
Mr. Issa was a lesser-known member of Hamas’s prime brass, sustaining a low profile and infrequently showing in public.
Gerhard Conrad, a former German intelligence officer who met Mr. Issa greater than a decade in the past, described him as a “decisive and quiet” particular person missing charisma. “He was not very eloquent, however he knew what to say, and he was straight to the purpose,” Mr. Conrad mentioned in an interview.
Mr. Conrad mentioned he met Mr. Issa, Mr. al-Jabari and Mahmoud al-Zahar, one other senior Hamas official, about ten instances between 2009 and 2011 in Gaza Metropolis. The boys met as a part of an effort to dealer a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas.
“He was the grasp of the information on the prisoners,” Mr. Conrad mentioned of Mr. Issa. “He had all of the names to be negotiated on.”
Mr. Conrad, nonetheless, mentioned it was obvious on the time that Mr. Issa was a subordinate to Mr. al-Jabari. “He was a type of chief of workers,” he mentioned.
It was solely after Mr. al-Jabari’s assassination that Mr. Issa’s prominence grew, however he nonetheless was eager to remain out of view. Few photographs of Mr. Issa are within the public area.
Mr. Awawdeh, the analyst, known as Mr. Issa a person who preferred to “stay within the shadows” and who seldom granted interviews to the media.
In a type of uncommon interviews, Mr. Issa spoke in 2021 about his function within the oblique talks that resulted in Israel exchanging greater than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for a single Israeli soldier, Sgt. First Class Gilad Shalit, and his hopes for a future battle with Israel.
“Even when the resistance in Palestine is monitored by the enemy in any respect hours, it is going to shock the enemy,” he informed Al Jazeera on the time.
In a separate interview with a Hamas publication in 2005, Mr. Issa lauded militants who raided Israeli settlements and navy bases, calling the actions “heroic” and an “superior exercise.”
What is understood about his youth?
Mr. Issa was born within the Bureij space of central Gaza in 1965, however his household hails from what’s now the Ashkelon space in Israel.
A Hamas member for many years, he was concerned with the militant group concerned pursuing Palestinians who have been believed to have collaborated with Israel, based on Mr. Awawdeh.
Mr. Issa hung out in prisons operated by each Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli navy, has mentioned that Mr. Issa helped plan the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault. Mr. Issa can also be thought to have deliberate operations geared toward infiltrating Israeli settlements in the course of the second intifada within the 2000s, Mr. Milshtein mentioned.
March 18, 2024
:
An earlier model of this text misstated the surname of a former Israeli navy intelligence chief. He’s Tamir Hayman, not Heyman.
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