A senior Hamas commander’s death in an Israeli strike threatens to derail the Gaza ceasefire, the group’s chief negotiator said on Sunday, and he urged U.S. President Donald Trump to press Israel to uphold the truce.
Thousands of Hamas supporters attended the funeral in central Gaza City for Raed Saed and three aides killed the day before, a turnout that underscored the group’s renewed show of presence since the U.S.-backed ceasefire began in October.
Mourners carried coffins draped with green Hamas flags and chanted phrases honoring the dead, signaling one of the largest public displays of support in the ceasefire period.
Khalil al-Hayya, a Hamas official living in exile, confirmed Saed’s death in a televised address, describing it as the most high-profile assassination of a senior Hamas figure since the truce.
Hayya warned that ongoing Israeli violations of the ceasefire and the latest targeted killings threaten the agreement’s viability. He called on mediators, especially the United States, to compel Israel to respect and commit to the ceasefire.
Israel says Saed was a key architect of the October 7, 2023, attack that sparked the current conflict. Hamas, meanwhile, has not named a single overall chief since Israel killed Yehya Sinwar in 2024. Leadership has operated through a five-member high council, of which Hayya is a member.
Since the ceasefire, Israeli forces have controlled the depopulated eastern half of Gaza, while Hamas has reasserted control over the western half, where most of the enclave’s more than 2 million residents live amid ruins. The two sides remain at odds over next steps: Israel demands Hamas disarm and be barred from governing Gaza; Hamas aims for full Israeli withdrawal and insists on keeping its arms.
The ceasefire framework envisions a U.N.-authorized International Stabilization Force to help maintain peace. Hayya suggested the force should focus solely on separating the sides at Gaza’s border, outside the territory itself.
A U.S.-led conference in Doha, hosted by the U.S. Central Command on December 16 with allied nations, aims to plan deployments for the International Stabilization Force in Gaza, according to U.S. officials.
In the central Gaza Strip, gunmen killed Ahmed Zamzam, a senior officer in Hamas’s internal security service responsible for countering collaboration with Israel. The Gaza Interior Ministry labeled the attackers as collaborators acting on Israeli orders and said one suspect was detained.
Reuters was unable to independently verify this report. The Israeli military declined to comment.
Reporting by Menna Alaa El-Din, Muhammad Al Gebaly, and Nidal al-Mughrabi; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Peter Graff
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