News - Middle East: A senior member of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has said that the martyrdom of Marwan Issa, deputy chief of staff of al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, has not been confirmed.

“We did not receive confirmation from Al-Qassam leaders regarding the martyrdom of Commander Marwan Issa,” Osama Hamdan, who represents Hamas in Lebanon, said on Tuesday.

“The assassination of resistance leaders does not weaken us, and the White House’s announcement regarding Marwan Issa confirms its involvement in the war of extermination,” Hamdan added.

The Israeli occupation troops however on Tuesday claimed that it had killed Issa in a strike earlier this month.

He was killed “in a precise strike two weeks ago by the air force based on intelligence from the Shin Bet,” the Israeli internal security agency, said army spokesman Daniel Hagari.

He called Issa “one of the organizers of the October 7” killings in Israel.

During a press conference on March 18, the White House announced that Issa had been killed, but Israel had not commented on the issue until now.

The Israeli military had previously claimed they had targeted Issa in an airstrike on an underground compound in central Gaza on March 9-10.

In a statement published by al-Aqsa TV in March last year, Issa said that the occupied West Bank and al-Quds are both "arenas of action and strategic influence" at the current juncture, reiterating that resistance will not remain silent in both areas. 

“We will defend our people with all force when direct intervention is required,” Issa said.

“The martyrdom spirit of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank is unprecedented and our people and the Palestinian resistance… in the region are well aware of the righteousness of resistance and national unity in the face of the occupation,” he concluded.

Issa, Hamas’s top leader in Gaza, was the alleged mastermind of the October 7 unprecedented operation against the Israeli regime in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

The October 7 Hamas operation was carried out in response to Israel’s violations of the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East al-Quds.

In response, the Israeli regime launched a genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip that has so far killed at least 32,300 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured around 74,000 others.

The Tel Aviv regime has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

Source: Press TV