Level 1 — Absolute Beginner
On Friday, Israel sent a plane to the Gaza Strip. The plane fired a missile at a building.
The Israeli army says the missile killed a man named Izz al-Din al-Haddad. He was a top leader of Hamas. Hamas is the group that ruled Gaza for many years.
The army says al-Haddad helped plan a big attack on Israel in October 2023. That attack started a long and sad war.
Some other people were killed too, including his wife and his daughter. Many people in the world are talking about this news.
- Israel
- a small country in the Middle East
- Gaza Strip
- a small piece of land on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea, next to Israel
- Hamas
- a Palestinian political and armed group that ruled the Gaza Strip
- leader
- a person who is in charge of a group of people
- army
- the soldiers of a country
- missile
- a weapon that flies through the air and explodes when it hits something
- attack
- a sudden act of violence against people or places
- war
- a long fight between two or more countries or groups
Level 2 — Elementary
On Saturday, May 16, 2026, the Israeli army said that one of its airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Friday had killed Izz al-Din al-Haddad. He was the head of Hamas's military wing — the part of Hamas that fights with weapons.
Israeli officials say al-Haddad was one of the last living people who helped plan the surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. About 1,200 people were killed in that attack, and more than 250 were taken into Gaza as hostages.
Six other people were also killed in the strike, including al-Haddad's wife and one of his daughters. The Israeli army said it had been watching him for a long time before it had a chance to hit him.
Al-Haddad had taken over the job after the death of an earlier commander called Mohammed Sinwar. His killing is the biggest blow to Hamas's leadership since a ceasefire was signed in October 2024 with help from the United States.
- airstrike
- an attack made from an aircraft, usually with bombs or missiles
- military wing
- the armed, fighting part of a political group
- hostage
- a person who is captured and held until certain demands are met
- commander
- a person in charge of a group of soldiers
- ceasefire
- an agreement to stop fighting for a period of time
- officials
- people with important jobs in a government or organisation
- blow
- an event that causes serious damage or trouble to someone
- wing
- a separate section or branch inside a bigger group
Level 3 — Intermediate
On the morning of Saturday, May 16, 2026, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet domestic security service jointly confirmed that Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the supreme commander of Hamas's military wing — the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades — had been killed in an airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip the previous day. He was described in the announcement as 'one of the last surviving architects' of the October 7, 2023 cross-border attack that triggered the war in Gaza.
According to the IDF, six other people, among them al-Haddad's wife and one of his daughters, died in the same strike. Israeli officials said the operation was the product of months of intelligence work and that the precise location was identified only hours before the missile was fired.
Al-Haddad, a long-time figure inside Hamas's armed wing, was best known for running its internal counter-intelligence section, the Majd unit, before rising to overall military command following the killing of his predecessor Mohammed Sinwar in 2024. Western and regional analysts say he was central to maintaining the group's chain of command during the chaotic months after the war's outbreak.
His killing is the most senior assassination of a Hamas official since the U.S.-backed October 2024 ceasefire that paused — but did not fully end — the fighting. Israeli officials framed the strike as a warning that Israel would continue to pursue October 7 planners regardless of the formal ceasefire, while Hamas, in a brief statement, vowed that 'the path of resistance' would not be broken.
- Israel Defense Forces
- the official military of the State of Israel, also known by the abbreviation IDF
- Shin Bet
- Israel's internal security service, responsible for counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence inside the country
- Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades
- the armed wing of Hamas, named after a 1930s Palestinian preacher and militant
- architect
- in a political sense, a person who designs or plans a major event or strategy
- counter-intelligence
- activities designed to stop enemy spies and protect a group's own secrets
- predecessor
- the person who held a job before the current holder
- chain of command
- the order of authority through which orders pass in a military or organisation
- assassination
- the deliberate killing of a prominent person, often for political reasons
Level 4 — Advanced
In a joint statement issued on the morning of Saturday, May 16, 2026, the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet domestic security agency announced that Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the supreme commander of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades — the military wing of Hamas — had been killed the previous day in a precision airstrike on a building in the southern Gaza Strip. Six other people, among them al-Haddad's wife and one of his daughters, were said to have died in the same attack, which Israeli officials described as the culmination of a months-long intelligence and surveillance operation.
Al-Haddad, who had joined the Qassam Brigades soon after their establishment in the early 1990s and built his early career inside the Majd internal-security unit charged with hunting suspected Israeli collaborators, rose to the top of Hamas's military hierarchy only after the killing of his predecessor Mohammed Sinwar in 2024. Senior analysts within both the Washington Institute and the International Crisis Group had repeatedly identified him in the intervening eighteen months as the key figure holding the group's increasingly atomised chain of command together, particularly across the tunnel network beneath Khan Younis and Rafah.
His killing is the most senior assassination of a Hamas official since the U.S.-brokered October 2024 ceasefire — an agreement that had paused but never formally terminated the war that began with Hamas's surprise cross-border assault on October 7, 2023, in which approximately 1,200 Israelis were killed and 251 taken hostage. Israeli officials framed the operation publicly as proof that Israel reserved the right to continue targeting the architects of October 7 outside the bounds of the ceasefire's hostilities clauses, citing the precedent set by the killings of Hassan Nasrallah and Yahya Sinwar.
The diplomatic and military implications are likely to be substantial. Egyptian and Qatari mediators, who had been working through the spring on a phased deal to exchange the remaining Israeli hostages for senior Palestinian prisoners, indicated that the killing would require an immediate recalibration of negotiating channels — particularly because al-Haddad himself had reportedly been the eventual authorising signatory inside the Qassam Brigades. Within Hamas, the question of his succession has now opened publicly for the second time in two years, with attention turning to whichever surviving Brigades commander has retained the deepest operational reach inside Gaza.
- supreme commander
- the highest-ranking officer in a military structure, with overall authority below the political leadership
- culmination
- the highest or final point reached after a long process
- collaborator
- in a conflict, a person within a community who secretly helps the enemy
- atomised
- broken down into many small, often disconnected, units
- tunnel network
