Hamas Rejects Nikolai Mladenov Report, Postpones Cairo Meeting After Israeli Airstrike Kills Ezzedine Al-Haddad

Hamas rejected a report submitted by Nikolai Mladenov, the High Representative for the Peace Council, and postponed a scheduled Cairo meeting after the assassination of Hamas military official Ezzedine al-Haddad in an Israeli airstrike on the city of Gaza last Friday.

“The jihadi and dawah march of martyr leader Ezzedine Haddad, 'Abu Sihab,' began at the dawn of the 1980s from within the houses of God, characterized by his early commitment to the mosque and his keen emphasis on study circles and the Qur'an”

Al-Jazeera Net

A Hamas official told Asharq that the movement informed mediators in Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey that Mladenov’s report is “rejected and biased toward the occupier, and that it is not acceptable to hold new negotiation talks, while the occupation denies the agreement and continues the aggression.”

Al-Jazeera Net

The same account said mediators had proposed new meetings in Cairo to discuss exiting the current crisis after weeks of negotiations failed to yield progress.

It also cited informed sources saying Israel insists on tying any step related to a ceasefire to disarming Hamas and the Palestinian factions, while Hamas and the Gaza factions press Israel to compel it to fulfill the obligations of the first phase of the agreement.

In parallel, the New Arab’s account of the assassination described how Israeli intelligence agencies detected Haddad’s return to a family-owned apartment and how “the planes dropped the bombs” once political approval was issued.

The New Arab, citing the Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, said a “golden piece of information” led to the assassination of Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades commander Az-Din al-Haddad in the Gaza Strip last Friday.

It quoted Major A, an officer in the IDF's Operations Branch, saying that “We were very close to killing him during the war, but the presence of Israeli prisoners with him prevented us from targeting him earlier.”

Al-Jazeera Net

The report described how Israeli security services intensified efforts to track senior Hamas leaders after the prisoners left Gaza, and it said Haddad was pursued even before October 7.

It further said the decisive intelligence breakthrough came when Israeli intelligence agencies detected Haddad’s return to a family-owned apartment, and it described “secret and complex” procedures to ensure he remained inside until the moment of the raid.

The account also quoted Captain L, deputy head of the leadership and control section at the Fire Center of the Southern Command, saying that carrying out a operation of this kind requires dozens of security and intelligence agencies to work in sync, including Shin Bet and Aman.

Al-Jazeera Net’s profile framed Ezzedine Haddad as “Abu Sihab” and traced his trajectory from the early 1980s through roles in Hamas’s dawa and popular work, including his arrest by the Israeli occupation in 1989 in Gaza Central Prison.

It described how, after release, Haddad resumed activity with Hamas’s “Events” apparatus and then the “Thunderbolt” apparatus, with duties including deterring collaborators, pursuing them, and planning military operations against the occupation.

The profile said that with the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, Haddad took initiative to reestablish contact with the leadership of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades and began manufacturing explosive devices for engineering ambush operations targeting vehicles on the Karni/Nitzarim crossing and the Martyrs' Junction.

It also detailed later leadership progression, including that in 2004 he assumed the position of commander of the Shujaiya Battalion in the Qassam Brigades and that in 2006 he served as deputy commander of the Gaza Brigade under Ahmed al-Ja'bari.

In the New Arab account, Major A described Haddad’s assassination as a “hard blow” to Hamas’s ability to manage negotiations, saying “To manage negotiations you need an organized body to make decisions.”