https://wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-says-it-has-killed-half…
The Israeli military has killed about half of Hamas’s midlevel commanders in Gaza, Israeli officials said, as its troops pressed forward Wednesday into the suspected hiding place of the group’s leader in a bid to eliminate its top brass.
Israel is deploying a deliberate strategy to find and kill the militant group’s midlevel operatives to disrupt Hamas’s ability to fight in Gaza, though military analysts caution doing so is unlikely immediately to deliver the victory it craves.
Israel has so far failed to assassinate the U.S.-designated terrorist group’s senior leadership, which includes Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas in Gaza, and Mohammed Deif, the head of the group’s armed wing. But fighting is now coalescing around Khan Younis, one of Hamas’s strongholds in the southern strip, where the Israeli military says Sinwar and others could be hunkering.