On May 15, Israel eliminated Izz al-Din al-Haddad, better known inside Hamas as Abu Suhaib. The strike in Gaza City removed the terrorist organization’s most senior military commander with real operational authority inside the territory. With his death, Hamas has effectively lost the last figure capable of exercising unified battlefield control over its forces in Gaza.Abu Suhaib was not an obscure militant operating in the shadows of the organization. He was one of Hamas’s founding members, a longtime brigade commander, and former head of the group’s internal security apparatus. Over the years, he survived at least six Israeli assassination attempts, earning the nickname “Ghost of al-Qassam.” After Mohammed Sinwar’s death in May 2025, Abu Suhaib assumed command of Hamas’s al Qassam Brigades in Gaza, overseeing an estimated 27,000 fighters and roughly 390 kilometers of tunnels concentrated in the northern sector.He was also directly tied to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. According to Israeli intelligence assessments, Abu Suhaib distributed written operational orders to Hamas battalion commanders the night before the assault that slaughtered 1,200 Israelis and resulted in the kidnapping of 251 people. During the war, he helped oversee Hamas’s hostage infrastructure and reportedly kept captives near him as human shields to complicate Israeli targeting operations.