West Asia

The Palestinian Islamic resistance movement Hamas has confirmed the martyrdom of a senior member of its Military Council and the commander of its Rafah Brigade in a treacherous Israeli airstrike. In a statement issued on Sunday morning, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced that Commander Samir Mahmoud Abu Yunus, known as Abu Mahmoud, was martyred in a “cowardly assassination operation” after a lifetime of struggle and sacrifice against the Zionist occupation.

The Al-Qassam Brigades stressed that Abu Mahmoud belonged to the first generation of fighters who joined the resistance’s military wing in 1991. He endured prolonged imprisonment in the dungeons of the Zionist regime, took part in major operations against the occupation, and served as an active field commander during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. He steadily rose through the ranks of the Rafah Brigade: following the martyrdom of Mahmoud Hamdan, he assumed command of the Western Battalion, and after the assassination of Nael Abu Ubaid (Abu Atiya), he took full command of the Rafah Brigade.

The martyr was among the key commanders involved in the planning and supervision of the historic Al-Aqsa Flood operation of October 7, 2023. The strike that claimed his life targeted him in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, a coastal zone previously designated by the occupation as a “humanitarian area” and crowded with displaced Palestinians living in tents. The attack forms part of the Israeli regime’s ongoing campaign of targeted assassinations and systematic violations of the October 2025 ceasefire, which has already claimed more than 1,600 Palestinian lives since it took effect.

This latest crime comes after a series of similar assassinations of Al-Qassam commanders in southern Gaza, including previous Rafah Brigade leaders Muhammad Shabana and Nael Abu Ubaid, as the occupation continues its genocidal war that has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians and wounded over 175,000 since October 2023. The Al-Qassam Brigades declared that the path forged by Abu Mahmoud and his fellow martyrs, sealed with their pure blood, will remain the route of the mujahideen toward victory and the complete liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.

The resistance affirmed that such cowardly assassinations will only strengthen the determination of the Palestinian people and the Axis of Resistance to continue the struggle until the Zionist entity is defeated.