Hamas terrorist Abdullah Hamad, the son of senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad, was killed in Rafah on Sunday, according to social media posts by the family and reports in local Palestinian media.
Hamad was one of the terrorists killed by the IDF while trying to flee from a tunnel in Rafah on Sunday, the Hamas-affiliated Quds News Network reported.
Sources within the Hamad family also reportedly confirmed the death to The Palestinian Information Center.
Mohammed Hamad reportedly told the center, “My beloved, the light of my heart, Abdullah, has become a martyr. He departed bravely, not fleeing, under siege and in combat in the tunnels of Rafah. He met The Almighty with contentment and faith.”
“Abdullah's martyrdom didn't pain me, for by God, it was his peace and the path he chose," Mohammed Hamad posted on Instagram. "What pained me was knowing for months that he was hungry, thirsty, exhausted, and trapped underground, only a few kilometers from me, and I couldn't even send him a sip of water, or a fleeting greeting of longing.”
The IDF has not yet confirmed Hamad's death.
Last week, Israel submitted a proposal to Hamas via intermediaries, which would have allowed terrorists in tunnels to surrender and be arrested rather than killed, N12 reported.
"We gave the terrorists in Rafah the option to live and be released from there. Up until this moment, they have not agreed to meet the conditions we set. It seems as if they have decided to become martyrs," an Israeli source told N12.
Hamas, which previously demanded immunity for terrorists caught in tunnels behind the Yellow Line, posted on Telegram that surrender was not a possibility.
Who is Hamas terrorist Ghazi Hamad?
Ghazi Hamad, born in 1964 in the Yibna Refugee Camp, is a member of Hamas‘s leadership and was previously the spokesman for the 2006 Palestinian Authority-Hamas coalition government.
Now a member of the terrorist group’s political bureau, he has represented the terror group in negotiations in Doha.
Earlier this year, he survived an Israeli strike on Doha.
Despite the resulting war, which Palestinian officials have claimed caused widespread death and destruction in the Gaza Strip, Ghazi Hamad has frequently defended the October 7 terror attacks to international media.
The official has also previously defended the abduction of baby Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel, who were murdered in captivity.
When asked in a CBS News interview in December 2023 how Hamas could justify abducting the infants, Ghazi Hamad responded, "They have to exert pressure on Israel, their government, in order to tell them that you are going in the wrong way."