Israel declared on Sunday that notorious Hamas spokesman Hudayfa Samir Abdallah al-Kahlout, alias Abu Obeida, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip a day earlier.
The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet initially said only that the Saturday strike had targeted a senior Hamas operative, but reports quickly identified the operative as the infamous terror group spokesman, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the identification at the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.
The outcome of the strike was initially unclear, but unnamed Israeli security sources had expressed cautious optimism as to Abu Obeida’s fate, until Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed Sunday that the strike had been successful.
In a post on X, Katz wrote that the longtime spokesman “was sent to meet all the eliminated members of the axis of evil from Iran, Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen at the bottom of hell.”
“Soon, as the campaign over Gaza intensifies,” he promised, “he will meet many more of his partners in crime there — Hamas murderers and rapists.”
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Shortly after Katz’s remarks, the IDF issued a statement confirming that Abu Obeida, whom it called “the face of the terrorist organization,” had indeed been the target of Saturday’s strike.
“The operation was conducted jointly from the Shin Bet’s operations war room, in cooperation with the Southern Command, and was made possible thanks to prior intelligence gathered by the Shin Bet and Military Intelligence, which pointed to the hideout where the terrorist was located,” the IDF statement said.
The military said that for the past decade, Abu Obeida “was responsible for the propaganda apparatus of Hamas’s military wing. In this role, he oversaw spokesperson operations across brigades and battalions, coordinated between political media elements and the military wing, and was the senior figure setting propaganda policy.”
Hamas’s propaganda wing, said the IDF, “was responsible for distributing the atrocities of the October 7 massacre using footage captured by Hamas terrorists.”
Abu Obeida’s outfit also spread videos throughout the Arab world seeking to incite acts of terror and distributed videos of hostages in Gaza, the military added.
Earlier on Sunday, Netanyahu had said at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting that Israel had not yet been able to confirm if Abu Obeida had been killed.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) leads a cabinet meeting at an undisclosed secure location on August 31, 2025 (Screenshot/GPO)
“The Shin Bet and the IDF struck the Hamas spokesman, the spokesman of the murderous evil organization, Abu Obeida,” he said.
“We still don’t know the final outcome — I hope he is no longer with us — but I notice there’s no one to speak about this from Hamas’s side,” the premier quipped. “So, the coming hours and days will tell.”
Abu Obeida had been the spokesman of Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, since 2004. He rose to prominence in 2006 when he announced the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
The always-masked Abu Obeida has since been the face of the terror group’s higher-profile statements and its psychological warfare.
Abu Obeida’s last statement was issued on Friday evening, warning Israel that its planned offensive to conquer Gaza City would subject hostages in the area to the “same risks” as the terror group’s fighters.
In light of the assassination of the Hamas spokesman, coupled with the strikes that killed the prime minister of the Houthi-led government, Ahmed Ghaleb al-Rahwi, in Yemen last week, the cabinet was reported to have gathered for its weekly meeting in a secure alternative location out of fear of retaliatory attacks.
At the meeting, Netanyahu said that the IDF “has already begun implementing” a recent cabinet decision “to defeat Hamas and bring back all of our hostages.” Those goals have long been the stated aims of the war in Gaza, but Netanyahu seemed to be referencing the decision to move ahead with the conquest of Gaza City by the IDF.
Turning to last week’s strike on the Houthi political leadership, Netanyahu said that “in every one of his speeches, [Houthi leader Abdul-Malik] al-Houthi promises he will strike Israel, that he will destroy Israel. That’s written on their flag.”
“That promise will not be fulfilled,” he promised. “But our promise — to strike the terror regime with increased force — is being fulfilled. And how is it being fulfilled. In a deadly blow, the IDF eliminated most of the Houthi government and additional military officials.”
He said that Israel will continue working to assassinate senior Houthi officials: “This is only the beginning of the campaign targeting senior officials in Sana’a. We will reach all of them.”
Netanyahu also boasted that the Western and Arab coalitions that have attacked the Houthis in the past were unable to achieve what Israel has, and said that ever since the 12-day war with Iran in June, Israel has been “striking the remaining parts of the axis systematically — day after day, front after front.”
