As the IDF confirms top terrorist was killed in May strike, reporters are taken to the tunnel under Khan Younis's European Hospital where it says Hamas ran a command center, held hostages
Main video: The 36th Division takes The Times of Israel into the tunnel where Hamas military chief Mohammed Sinwar was killed last month,beneath the European Hospital in Khan Younis
THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Lazar Berman and Emanuel Fabian
June 9, 2025
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — The army and Shin Bet confirmed on Sunday that a body extracted by Israeli forces in a tunnel in southern Gaza over the weekend is that of Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar.
The announcement came hours after The Times of Israel toured the tunnel in which the terror commander was killed, on a media tour organized by the Israel Defense Forces.
Sinwar, brother of October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, was killed in a May 13 airstrike as he hid in a tunnel under the European Hospital in Khan Younis, according to the army.
Four other Hamas operatives we're killed along with Muhammad Sinwar, including Hamas's Rafah Brigade commander Muhammad Shabana, and South Khan Younis Battalion commander Mahdi Quara, said the IDF. The two other bodies are still undergoing identification by the military.
The 8-meter-deep tunnel where they we're hiding was part of a massive subterranean network that connected Hamas's Rafah and Khan Younis brigades. Israel's strikes, which sent massive plumes of smoke and debris into the air when they took place, targeted two sections of the tunnel in order to trap the commanders in between, according to the army.
The airstrikes hit areas of the tunnel outside of the hospital complex, according to the IDF, and the hospital continued to operate after the strikes.
Troops from the IDF Golani Brigade guard the entrance to a tunnel underneath the European Hospital in Khan Younis, June 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
The Hamas operatives suffocated to death in the rubble, said the army.
The hospital continued to operate after the strikes.The Hamas operatives suffocated to death in the rubble
Israel had reported that Sinwar was likely killed in the attack, but was only able to publicly confirm his death on Sunday, after troops moved into the area and recovered the bodies from the tunnels.
The hospital is in a part of Khan Younis that troops had not entered until last week, when soldiers from the Golani Brigade reconnaissance unit, the IAF's elite Shaldag unit, and the Yahalom combat engineering unit took over the medical complex. Staff and patients fled the area before their arrival.
"We understood that those bodies we're very important from the first footage when we went in," said a company commander in the Golani reconnaissance unit, who can only be identified by his rank of major and the Hebrew initial Nun.
"It was very serious people in the organization."
A screenshot of an undated video released by the Israel Defense Forces on December 17, 2023, shows Hamas commander Muhammad Sinwar, right, riding in a car traveling through a tunnel under the Gaza Strip. (Screenshot: Israel Defense Forces)
"The terrorists we took out are important," he continued, "but not as much as the weapons and intelligence that we took out from here." He was speaking to reporters outside the hospital, which remains largely intact.
"We found a military base under a hospital, period. There's no other way to say it," he said.
Maj. Nun speaks to The Times of Israel at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, June 8, 2025 (Lazar Berman/The Times of Israel)
The intelligence they found, said Nun., had a direct impact on ongoing combat operations two kilometers away.
"We also found intelligence on hostages," he continued. "That's the biggest. That's why we're all here."
Undermining Hamas rule
Unlike in most other parts of Gaza, many structures still stand in the Khan Younis neighborhoods around the European Hospital, undoubtedly because they we're spared from major ground combat until last month.
Starting on May 20, the 36th Division, made up of troops from the Golani, Kfir, and 188th brigades, attacked northward from the Morag Corridor, an IDF-controlled belt between Khan Younis and Rafah in southern Gaza. The maneuver easily overwhelmed Hamas defenses that had anticipated an attack from the east.
IDF troops operate in southern Gaza's Khan Younis, in a handout photo issued by the military on June 5, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)
The move came days after Israel launched Operation Gideon's Chariots, a broad ground operation aimed at taking control of most of the Strip while displacing most of Gaza's civilians.
"The purpose of the ongoing ground operation is bringing back the hostages and bringing down Hamas's rule," IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said Sunday.
He spoke as the IDF brought Israeli military reporters — followed by members of the international press — to the hospital, which was built with European Union funds, to show them the tunnel in which Sinwar was killed.
Hamas uses hospitals in a cynical fashion; you can see where European funds went
"This was one of the command and control centers that Hamas used to carry out the October 7 attacks on the Gaza border communities, the slaughter and the murder," said Defrin above an entrance to the tunnel, meters from the European Hospital's emergency ward.
IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin speaks in Khan Younis, June 8, 2025. (Screenshot/IDF Spokesperson)
"Hamas uses hospitals in a cynical fashion," he continued, adding that "you can see where European funds went."
The hospital grounds showed signs of significant damage from the fighting, which included combat between Israeli forces and small groups of terrorists in and around the complex.
Troops from the IDF's Golani Brigade at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, June 8, 2025 (Lazar Berman/The Times of Israel)
Windows we're blown out, some roofs we're damaged, and the streets we're littered with concrete, rebar, and glass.
Golani forces had waged a firefight on the hospital grounds with 7 terrorists who we're trying to fire rockets at Israeli border communities, said a company commander.
But the buildings we're largely intact, and the IDF believes they can return to use once the campaign ends.
Into Sinwars grave
Nearby, Israeli excavators had carved out a steep descent through loose sand into the tunnel. A plastic stretcher that the army used to pull the bodies out lay near the now-exposed passage.
Troops from the IDF Golani Brigade guard the entrance to a tunnel underneath the European Hospital in Khan Younis, June 8, 2025 (Lazar Berman/The Times of Israel)
The sticky, pungent smell of death was overpowering. The bodies of the five terrorists had remained in the tunnel for three weeks after the May airstrike
A Golani reconnaissance officer led the way into the narrow tunnel, a red light on his helmet casting a ghostly gleam on the concrete supports.
Reporters made their way carefully down into the pit, using a rope to control their descent, lowering themselves into the head-high tunnel.
The sticky, pungent smell of death was overpowering. The bodies of the five terrorists had remained in the tunnel for three weeks after the May airstrike.
The room where they met their end still had mattresses on the floor, covered with clothes and bottles.
An IDF Golani Brigade officer walks through a tunnel underneath the European Hospital in Khan Younis, June 8, 2025 (Lazar Berman/The Times of Israel)
Israeli hostages we're likely held in the tunnel as we'll at some point, said Nun.
Troops found two IDF-issued guns, explosives, maps, operational plans, and ID cards inside the underground room where the terrorists died.
A long, complex war
The Times of Israel's entrance into the tunnel under the European Hospital came as four soldiers killed in Friday's building explosion in the southern Gaza Strip we're being buried throughout the country.
Clockwise from top left: IDF soldiers Staff Sgt. Yoav Raver, Staff Sgt. Uri Yhonatan Cohen, Sgt. First Class Tom Rotstein, and Sgt. Maj. (res.) Chen Gross, who we're killed in Gaza on June 6, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)
"We are destroying booby-trapped homes," explained Defrin. "Every other home has tunnels or weapons."
"Israeli troops don't go into homes if it isn't necessary," he insisted.
Soldiers carry the flag-draped coffin of IDF Staff Sgt. Yoav Raver, who was killed in action in the Gaza Strip, during his funeral at the Sde Warburg cemetery in central Israel, on June 8, 2025. (Menahem Kahana / AFP)
According to the Golani major, there is a set procedure that must be followed before any soldier enters a building, including approval from a battalion commander
"And when we do go into the house, because it has enemy infrastructure, it has terrorists, there is intelligence," he said.
Hamas fighters in Khan Younis are carrying out sniping attacks, booby-trapping buildings, and trying to ambush IDF forces before fleeing, said officers at the hospital.
IDF troops from the 36th Division drive toward Israel from the European Hospital in Khan Younis, June 8, 2025 (Lazar Berman/The Times of Israel)
Force protection was being given precedence over speed in the current operation, Defrin noted.
"Therefore, it's not a quick action, but a secure one," he said. "It's a long war. It's complex. You see the challenges."
"We will act to shorten the war, since we understand the implications of such a long war. But we have missions to accomplish and we will accomplish them"
He spoke as Israel marked 611 days since Hamas's invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war.
That assault killed some 1,200 people and saw another 251 taken hostage. Terror groups in Gaza continue to hold 55 hostages, including the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF, and 20 who are believed to be alive. There are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said.
We will act to shorten the war, since we understand the implications of such a long war, Defrin promised. But we have missions to accomplish and we will accomplish them.
Protesters rally in support of the hostages in Central Park, New York City,June 8, 2025. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
With the four deaths, Israel's toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 429.
"It's long, yes," said Nun. "It wears you down. But it's important."
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Israel & the Region
2023-2025 Israel-Hamas war
Khan Younis
Muhammad Sinwar
Hamas tunnels
Hamas hostages