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Along with his dying, Mr. Issa, who had been amongst Israel’s most needed males, turned the senior-most Hamas chief to be killed in Gaza for the reason that begin of the conflict. Israeli officers have characterised the strike as a breakthrough of their marketing campaign to wipe out the Hamas management in Gaza.

However consultants cautioned that his dying — which Hamas has nonetheless not acknowledged — wouldn’t have a devastating impact on the armed group’s management construction. Israel has killed Hamas’s political and navy leaders prior to now, solely to see them rapidly changed.

Here’s a nearer have a look at Mr. Issa and what his dying means for Hamas and its management.

What was Mr. Issa’s position in Hamas?

Mr. Issa, who was 58 or 59 on the time of his dying, had served since 2012 as a deputy to Mohammed Deif, the elusive chief of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s navy wing. Mr. Issa assumed the position after the assassination of one other high commander, Ahmed al-Jabari.

Mr. Issa served each on Hamas’s navy council and in its Gaza political workplace, overseen by Yahya Sinwar, the group’s highest-ranking official within the enclave. Mr. Issa was described by Palestinian analysts and former Israeli safety officers as an necessary strategist who performed a key position as a liaison between Hamas’s navy and political leaders.

Salah al-Din al-Awawdeh, a Palestinian analyst near Hamas, described Mr. Issa’s place within the group as “a part of the entrance rank of the navy wing’s management.”

Maj. Gen. Tamir Hayman, the previous Israeli navy intelligence chief, mentioned Mr. Issa was concurrently Hamas’s “protection minister,” its deputy navy commander and its “strategic thoughts.”

What does his dying imply for the group?

Specialists described Mr. Issa as an necessary affiliate of Mr. Deif and Mr. Sinwar, although they mentioned his dying didn’t symbolize a risk to the group’s survival.

“There’s all the time a alternative,” Mr. Awawdeh mentioned. “I don’t suppose the assassination of any member of the navy wing will affect its actions.”

Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli navy intelligence officer and an professional on Palestinian affairs, mentioned Mr. Issa’s dying was a major blow to the Qassam Brigades, although he conceded it wasn’t “the top of the world” for Hamas.

“He had quite a lot of expertise,” Mr. Milshtein mentioned. “His dying is an enormous loss for Hamas, however it isn’t a loss that can result in its collapse and it gained’t have an effect on it for a very long time. In per week or two, they’ll overcome it.”

Mr. Milshtein added that regardless that Mr. Issa’s opinion was valued on the highest ranges of Hamas, the actual fact he didn’t straight command fighters meant his dying didn’t go away a gaping gap in Hamas’s operations.

How has he been described?

Mr. Issa was a lesser-known member of Hamas’s high brass, sustaining a low profile and barely showing in public.

Gerhard Conrad, a former German intelligence officer who met Mr. Issa greater than a decade in the past, described him as a “decisive and quiet” particular person missing charisma. “He was not very eloquent, however he knew what to say, and he was straight to the purpose,” Mr. Conrad mentioned in an interview.

Mr. Conrad mentioned he met Mr. Issa, Mr. al-Jabari and Mahmoud al-Zahar, one other senior Hamas official, about ten occasions between 2009 and 2011 in Gaza Metropolis. The boys met as a part of an effort to dealer a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas.

“He was the grasp of the info on the prisoners,” Mr. Conrad mentioned of Mr. Issa. “He had all of the names to be negotiated on.”

Mr. Conrad, nevertheless, mentioned it was obvious on the time that Mr. Issa was a subordinate to Mr. al-Jabari. “He was a sort of chief of workers,” he mentioned.

It was solely after Mr. al-Jabari’s assassination that Mr. Issa’s prominence grew, however he nonetheless was eager to remain out of view. Few pictures of Mr. Issa are within the public area.

Mr. Awawdeh, the analyst, referred to as Mr. Issa a person who favored to “stay within the shadows” and who seldom granted interviews to the media.

In a type of uncommon interviews, Mr. Issa spoke in 2021 about his position within the oblique talks that resulted in Israel exchanging greater than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for a single Israeli soldier, Sgt. First Class Gilad Shalit, and his hopes for a future battle with Israel.

“Even when the resistance in Palestine is monitored by the enemy in any respect hours, it should shock the enemy,” he instructed Al Jazeera on the time.

In a separate interview with a Hamas publication in 2005, Mr. Issa lauded militants who raided Israeli settlements and navy bases, calling the actions “heroic” and an “superior exercise.”

What is understood about his formative years?

Mr. Issa was born within the Bureij space of central Gaza in 1965, however his household hails from what’s now the Ashkelon space in Israel.

A Hamas member for many years, he was concerned with the militant group concerned pursuing Palestinians who had been believed to have collaborated with Israel, based on Mr. Awawdeh.

Mr. Issa frolicked in prisons operated by each Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli navy, has mentioned that Mr. Issa helped plan the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault. Mr. Issa can also be thought to have deliberate operations geared toward infiltrating Israeli settlements in the course of the second intifada within the 2000s, Mr. Milshtein mentioned.