The Israeli military said on Thursday that it was checking the possibility that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Israel's most wanted enemy, was among three militants killed during an operation in the Gaza Strip.
"At this stage, the identity of the terrorists cannot be confirmed," it said in a statement.
It said there were no signs that Israeli hostages had been present in the building where the three militants were killed.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas. Al-Majd, a Hamas-linked website that usually publishes about security issues, urged Palestinians to wait for information about Sinwar from the group itself and not Israeli media outlets, which it said aimed to break their spirit.
If confirmed, the death of Sinwar would represent a major boost to the Israeli military and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a string of high-profile assassinations of prominent leaders of its enemies in recent months.
Israel's Army Radio said the incident had occurred during a ground operation in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip during which Israeli troops killed three militants and took their bodies.
DNA tests
It said visual evidence suggested it was likely that one of the men was Sinwar and DNA tests were being conducted.
Israel has samples of Sinwar's DNA from his period in an Israeli jail.
Sinwar, the chief architect of the October 7th, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war, has been at the top of Israel's wanted list ever since. But he has so far eluded detection, possibly hiding in the warren of tunnels Hamas has built under Gaza over the past two decades.
Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant posted a message on social media platform X with a biblical quotation.
"'You will pursue your enemies and they will fall before you by the sword.' - Leviticus 26 Our enemies cannot hide. We will pursue and eliminate them."
The post contained pictures of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated in Beirut last month, and former Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, who was killed in August, with a blank space for a third picture between them. All three were crossed out in red.
Previously leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Sinwar was named as its overall leader following the assassination of former political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.
Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel on October 7th, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages into Gaza. Israel's campaign in response has killed more than 42,000 people, turned much of Gaza into rubble and displaced most of its population.
