Israel DNA-testing body from Gaza to see if it's Hamas' top leader Yahya Sinwar
Deir al-Balah (Gaza Strip), Oct 17: The Israeli military said on Thursday it was looking into whether Hamas' top leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in a military operation in Gaza. Authorities were conducting DNA tests on a body to determine if it is him, an Israeli security official said.
The military said in a statement that three leaders were killed during operations in Gaza, without specifying where or elaborating further. It said the identities of the three were so far not confirmed, but it was “checking the possibility” that one of them was Sinwar.
The security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said the tests on the body had not yet confirmed if it was Sinwar's.
There was no immediate comment by Hamas on the report.
Sinwar was one of the chief architects of Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel has vowed to kill him since the beginning of its retaliatory campaign in Gaza.
If confirmed, Sinwar's death could be a heavy blow to the Hamas group. He has been Hamas' top leader inside the Gaza Strip for years, closely connected to its military wing while dramatically building up its capabilities.
Sinwar was chosen as Hamas's top leader after his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in July in an apparent Israeli strike in the Iranian capital Tehran. Israel has also claimed to have killed the head of Hamas' military wing Mohammed Deif in an airstrike, but the group has said he survived.
President Joe Biden has been briefed on Israel's investigation into whether it killed Sinwar, and US officials have been in close contact with Israeli officials throughout Thursday morning, according to a senior administration official.
The report came as Israeli forces continued a more than week-old major air and ground assault in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. On Thursday, an Israeli strike hit a school sheltering displaced Palestinians, killing at least 15 people, including five children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Fares Abu Hamza, head of Gaza Health Ministry's local emergency unit, said dozens of people were wounded. He said the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was struggling to treat the casualties.
“Many women and children are in critical condition,” he said.
The Israeli military said it targeted a command centre run by Hamas and Islamic Jihad inside the school. It provided a list of around a dozen names of people it identified as members who were present when the strike was called in. It was not immediately possible to verify the names.
Israel has repeatedly struck tent camps and schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza. The Israeli military says it carries out precise strikes on group and tries to avoid harming civilians, but its strikes often kill women and children.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza to eliminate Hamas after the group stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. Some 100 captives are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel's offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants but says women and children make up a little more than half of the fatalities.
Northern Gaza was the first target of Israel's ground invasion nearly a year ago and has suffered the heaviest destruction of the war, with entire neighbourhoods in Gaza City and other towns reduced to rubble.
Most of the population fled after Israel issued evacuation orders in the opening days of the war, but about 400,000 are believed to have remained despite the harsh conditions.
Earlier this month, Israel once again ordered the full-scale evacuation of the north, and allowed no food aid to enter the area for around two weeks. That led many Palestinians to fear that it had adopted a surrender-or-starve strategy suggested by former Israeli generals.
Israel allowed two shipments of aid to enter the north earlier this week after the United States warned it might reduce its military aid if its ally did not do more to address the humanitarian crisis.
Since the start of the conflict, Israeli forces have launched repeated operations into Jabaliya, a densely populated urban refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation. The military says Hamas members have repeatedly regrouped there after major operations.
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RJD surprise element in J’khand polls, party candidates leading in 5 of 6 assembly seats
Ranchi(PTI): The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has emerged as a surprise element in the Jharkhand assembly elections with its candidates leading in five of the six seats where the party is contesting, according to trends available on the Election Commission's website on Saturday.
RJD candidates in five assembly seats were leading over sitting BJP legislators.
In 2019, RJD had secured only the Chatra seat where its nominee Satyanand Bhokta won.
In Deoghar, RJD’s Suresh Paswan was leading by 19,581 votes over his nearest rival and BJP's sitting MLA Narayan Das after the third round of counting.
RJD’s Sanjay Prasad Yadav was ahead by 19,867 votes in Godda over BJP MLA Amit Kumar Mandal after the sixth round of counting.
In Koderma, RJD nominee Subhash Prasad Yadav, who was out on bail, was leading by a margin of 3,471 votes over BJP’s sitting legislator Neera Yadav.
Subhas Prasad Yadav, considered to be one of the close aides of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, was recently granted bail by the Supreme Court in a money laundering case.
Party’s Naresh Prasad Singh was leading by 5,159 votes after the fourth round of counting over BJP’s Bishrampur MLA Ramchandra Chandravanshi.
RJD's Sanjay Kumar Singh Yadav was also leading from Hussainabad by 8,213 votes after the fourth round of counting over BJP MLA Kamlesh Kumar Singh.
Party’s candidate Rashmi Prakash, however, was trailing from Chatra by 3,776 votes.
Bhokta did not contest the elections this time, and his daughter-in-law Prakash was given a ticket.
