By Oren Liebermann, Jeremy Diamond, Dana Karni, Abeer Salman and Ibrahim Dahman

(CNN) — Israel has targeted Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar in a strike on a hospital in southern Gaza on Tuesday evening, according to a senior Israeli official and two sources familiar with the matter.

He became the militant group’s de facto leader after the Israeli military killed his brother, Yahya Sinwar, last October.

Tuesday’s strike killed 28 Palestinians and injured more than 50, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which does not differentiate between military and civilian casualties.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it carried out a strike on the European hospital in Khan Younis, targeting “Hamas terrorists in a command and control center” in underground infrastructure beneath the hospital. The IDF did not identify the target of the strike.

Multiple airstrikes hit the yard of the hospital, according to Dr. Saleh Al Hams, the head of nursing. Some people are buried under the rubble, he said, calling it “a catastrophe.” Medical teams tried to move patients to safe units inside the hospital.

Video from the scene showed towering pillars of smoke and dust from what appeared to be some of the largest strikes in Gaza in recent weeks.

A woman whose mother was being treated for lung cancer at the European hospital told the UK-based aid organization Medical Aid for Palestinians at the time of the strikes.

“Explosions came from every direction, smoke, fire, rubble, sand everywhere. My mother collapsed on the floor. Shrapnel was flying all around us…The terror was beyond words. We hardly escaped death,” she said.

Marwan al-Hams, Director General of Field Hospitals at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, said the strikes had targeted the hospital’s inner courtyard and damaged sewage and water networks.

Marwan added that ambulances were unable to reach the emergency department, and a bulldozer brought in to clear rubble had been hit in another strike on Wednesday.

“Until this damage is repaired, we will be forced to close most of the hospital’s departments,” he said.

Muneer Alboursh, director general of the health ministry said that the world had turned a blind eye to the suffering of Palestinian civilians, saying that Gaza had become a “zone where human life is treated as expendable.”

“If this footage came from Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Charite, or St. Thomas in London, the world would be on fire. Global leaders would descend. Investigations would launch within hours. But it was the European Hospital in Gaza – even its name couldn’t protect it,” Alboursh said.

Gaza Civil Defense said that three people were killed while on their way to the hospital Wednesday.

Hamas rejected any Israeli claims about Sinwar, saying in a statement, “The Palestinian resistance alone, through its official platforms, is the authority authorized to confirm or deny what is published.”

On Tuesday night, the IDF said it intercepted two rockets fired from Gaza, in what appears to be the first launch from the besieged territory in a month. A third rocket landed in an open area. The military wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they fired at Israeli cities near Gaza.

A short time later, Israel issued evacuation warnings for the Jabalya refugee camp and nearby areas in northern Gaza, saying the IDF will “strike and operate in every location from which rockets are fired.”

‘They took the hostage and that’s it’

The targeting of Sinwar comes one day after Hamas released Israeli American Edan Alexander in what was a goodwill gesture to the United States. The deal for a single hostage’s release sidelined Israel, as Hamas communicated with the Trump administration.

Strikes in Gaza overnight killed at least 56 people, according to the director general of the Ministry of Health, with a nurse at a hospital in northern Gaza saying most were women and children.

Many of the dead from the overnight strikes were taken to the Indonesian Hospital. One man there, Mohammad al Arbid, said his cousin’s family had been killed and asked why there had been no relief after the release on Monday of the Israeli-American hostage.

“They took the hostage and that’s it, no aid entered, there are no blood units in the hospital, there is no medication, there is a 5-year old boy crying inside. He only needs painkiller and there isn’t [any] in the whole hospital, while the world is watching.”

The US expressed some optimism about negotiations set to take place in Qatar with President Donald Trump and his envoy Steve Witkoff in the Middle East. Before leaving Israel, Witkoff promised the families of the hostages that he “will be relentless on that pursuit.”

But with negotiations about to start in Doha – and with an Israeli team en route – the targeting of Sinwar means Israel has just attempted to kill Hamas’ key decision maker needed to seal any potential agreement.

Israeli officials considered Mohammed Sinwar just as hardline as his brother, Yahya, but much more experienced militarily. According to the IDF, he commanded the Khan Younis Brigade until 2016. Like Yahya, he is believed to be one of the main planners of the October 7 terror attack on Israel.

Since the start of the war, he has remained hidden, along with many of Hamas’ senior leaders in Gaza. In December 2023, the IDF released video of what they said was Mohammed Sinwar driving through a tunnel in Gaza. In February 2024, the IDF said they had located his office in western Khan Younis.

Former US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said Sinwar was likely an obstacle in negotiations. “There is little chance the war can end before he dies,” Shapiro, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told CNN. “His removal could open the door for the release of all hostages and beginning to move toward a post-war future for Gaza without Hamas.”

But even if Sinwar is dead, it could take some time before Israel says officially that it has killed him, and even longer for Hamas to acknowledge his death. In mid-July, Israel said it had targeted Mohammed Deif in a strike on a designated humanitarian zone in southern Gaza. It took until August, more than two weeks later, for the IDF to declare it had indeed killed Deif. Hamas did not confirm his death until the end of January, nearly six months later.

Second Sinwar targeted

Before October, it was primarily Yahya Sinwar who was in the crosshairs of the Israeli military. Imprisoned for four life sentences in 1988, Yahya became fluent in Hebrew and said he spent his years studying his enemy. He was released in 2011 as part of the deal to free Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held hostage by Hamas in Gaza for five years. His release has been attributed to the fact that his brother Mohammed was one of Shalit’s kidnappers and insisted on Yahya’s inclusion in the deal.

Back in Gaza, Yahya quickly rose through the ranks of the militant organization, ultimately becoming its leader

After October 7, Yahya became Israel’s most wanted man, and the IDF searched for him in the tiny coastal enclave. US officials believed Israel had come close to Yahya more than once, flushing him out of underground hiding places.

But Yahya moved undetected in the tunnels under Gaza, rarely coming above ground and avoiding detection by Israel’s electronic surveillance. Ultimately, it was a routine Israeli patrol in Gaza which engaged in a firefight in Rafah in southern Gaza that discovered Yahya’s body in Rafah.

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