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Killing of Izz al-Din al-Haddadrecently selected topic of Divide the Brigadesthe military wing of Hamas, has symbolically destroyed the Palestinian community in Gaza, but its effect on the military situation is uncertain.
Al-Haddad was killed on Friday in a serious double threat to a residential building in Gaza City’s Remal adjacent to a vehicle attempting to flee the site. The deployment of powerful weapons in a densely populated area, full of civilian refugees, killed seven more Palestinians, including women and children, and injured 50 people.
However, while Israel says the killings will disrupt the group’s operations, experts say its culture is built to absorb such disruptions. As the region looks to see how the opposition will respond, al-Haddad’s death raises serious questions about the future of the fragile “cease fire” and who remains in charge of the Qassam Brigades.
Action: Will the Qassam Brigades fall?
The assassination of the Qassam Brigades commanders, including Mohammed Deif, Marwan Issa, and Yahya Sinwar’s brother, Mohammed, left al-Haddad as the military commander in charge of the war against Israel.
Saeed Ziad, a Palestinian political analyst, told Al Jazeera that although the loss is a “great and cultural threat” to the Palestinian people, the immediate consequences of the armed wing of Hamas will be limited.
“The Qassam Brigades are not built on hierarchical, hierarchical, but parallel lines,” Ziad said. “Over the past two decades, Hamas has evolved into a self-sustaining terrorist organization. Sections are operating as isolated, self-sufficient groups with their own resources and ideologies.”
“If a military unit or military unit loses its leader, the unit already knows its mission and has the tools to do it on its own,” he said. Reorganizing the general command of the Qassam Brigades to deal with the loss would take days, not months.
In addition, al-Haddad successfully used the October ceasefire with Israel to rebuild the group’s arsenal. “In the last 200 days, they have rebuilt the capabilities of the opposition – trenches, weapons and artillery – and made it able to defend itself,” Ziad said.
Who is left in the leadership of Hamas?
Israeli officials have boasted that they are on the verge of cracking down on Hamas’ central command, saying that only two members of the militant group before launching an attack on Israel in October 2023 – Mohammed Awad and Imad Aqel – are still alive.
However, experts point out that Hamas, which boasted about 50,000 fighters before the war, has a large client base and a well-established leadership succession plan that allows it to recover quickly from casualties.
“The opposition usually chooses the first, second, and third deputy for every executive officer, from the commander-in-chief to the leaders of the teams,” Ziad said. “Filling this position happens quickly.”
Hamas immediately confirmed Haddad’s death, with spokesman Hazem Qassem naming him as the “General Commander” of the Qassam Brigades. He also emphasized that although his death was a “great loss”, the group’s “long journey of resistance continues”.
The ‘Ghost’ of the Qassam Brigades
Born in the early 1970s, al-Haddad joined Hamas at its inception in 1987. He rose from an infant soldier to the commander of the Gaza City Brigade, overseeing six divisions – each division made up of 1,000 fighters plus 4,000 supporters.
He played an early role in the establishment of al-Majd – Hamas’ internal security apparatus designed to track Israeli intelligence agencies. But it was his ability to survive multiple assassinations – including the bombing of his home in 2009, 2012, 2021, and three times during the deadly war in Gaza – that made him a “Ghost”.
Al-Haddad left an indelible mark on the group as the chief architect of the protests of October 7, 2023. He himself oversaw the destruction of the eastern fence, directed the elite groups that destroyed the Re’im army and the Fajja army. According to intelligence reports, it was al-Haddad who gave local authorities several hours to carry out the attacks and ordered the Israeli army’s arrest.
In January 2025, an Israeli airstrike killed his son, Suhaib, but al-Haddad survived and continued to command operations and supervise the arrest of Israeli prisoners until an agreement was reached.
‘Stop fighting’ fragile edges
Earlier on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz issued rare statements, boasting that the killings were carried out on their orders.
Mohannad Mustafa, an Israeli news analyst, said that the killing of al-Haddad shows that Israel is trying to “break” apparently to violate the “cease fire” agreement, while the Netanyahu-Katz statement was a request to Washington to allow it to continue the massacre. At least 871 Palestinians have been killed since the “ceasefire” was announced on October 10, 2025, most of them civilians.
“Netanyahu is presenting this to the US government as a necessary step to ‘disarm Hamas’ under Trump’s plan,” Mustafa told Al Jazeera. “But the truth is that Israel did not want to end the war.
By systematically killing civilians, police, and soldiers without giving reasons for violating the “cease fire”, Israel wants to provoke accountability. “The main goal is to force Hamas to retaliate, which led to the collapse of the agreement and gave Israel the green light to start ‘Gideon 2’ – a military operation to occupy the entire Gaza Strip,” Mustafa said.
With Netanyahu in need of a decisive victory, such as the full surrender of Hamas, Ziad said the Israeli leadership is now leaning more on “the idea of killing” to create “an image of victory” in his homeland.
But history has shown that the killing of leading soldiers, such as al-Haddad, does not have long-term effects on Palestinian militant groups like Hamas.
“For the fighters in Gaza, this killing creates a blood covenant,” Ziad said. Returning after the death of leaders like Deif, Sinwar, or Haddad is considered a betrayal of that bloodline.
