Hamas's Newest Military Chief Killed Days After His Promotion

The Israel Defense Forces killed Muhammad Uda, the new head of the military wing of Hamas, in the Gaza Strip on the evening of Tuesday 26 May 2026, according to a statement issued in Jerusalem. The operation was carried out by order of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz.

Uda had served as head of Hamas's intelligence staff during the 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel and was described in the statement as one of the architects of that assault. He was appointed about a week earlier as the successor to Azz a-Din al-Haddad, who the statement said had been killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza about two weeks before. Uda was responsible for the murder, abduction and wounding of many Israeli civilians and soldiers, according to the statement.

A command chain Israel has been dismantling one link at a time

The job Uda had just taken has proved among the most lethal in the region. His predecessor, whose name is more commonly rendered in English as Izz al-Din al-Haddad, was confirmed by the IDF as killed in a strike on Gaza City on 15 May 2026. The Times of Israel reported that Haddad had led Hamas's Gaza City Brigade on 7 October, was nicknamed "The Ghost" for surviving repeated attempts on his life, and had taken over after the killing of Mohammed Sinwar in May 2025.

Haddad's own succession was reported within days. Citing the Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, the Times of Israel reported on 18 May 2026 that Hamas had selected Mohammed Odeh, its military intelligence chief on 7 October, to take both the Gaza leadership and command of the armed wing. The same report said Odeh had been offered the military command once before, after Sinwar's death in May 2025, and had turned it down.

The Jerusalem Post reported that the IDF and the Shin Bet security agency confirmed the killing of the man it rendered as Muhammad Ouda, saying the strike came eleven days after his predecessor's and that the air force had hit several buildings forming a network of possible hideouts before the military spent around twelve hours assessing whether the operation had succeeded.

Why the name looks different in different places

Readers following this story across outlets will meet the same men under several spellings: Uda, Ouda and Odeh; Azz a-Din al-Haddad and Izz al-Din al-Haddad. These are transliterations from Arabic rather than different people, and Israeli statements, Israeli newspapers and Arabic-language media each use their own conventions. This article keeps the spellings used in the Israeli statement it is based on.

What decapitation strikes have and have not achieved

Israel has now killed a run of Hamas military commanders in succession. The chain, as recorded in contemporaneous reporting, runs from Mohammed Sinwar, killed in May 2025, to Haddad, killed in May 2026, and on to his successor within a fortnight. The IDF's own account of the Haddad strike, as carried by the Times of Israel, said he had been working to rebuild the military wing's capabilities and to plan attacks despite a ceasefire that had taken effect the previous October, which is an implicit acknowledgement that the organisation kept reconstituting itself after each loss.

What the pace of succession suggests is that Hamas has a bench of commanders with direct involvement in planning 7 October, and that Israeli intelligence has been able to find them quickly once they surface into the top job.

What is still unclear

The Israeli statement did not say where in Gaza the strike took place, whether anyone else was killed or wounded, or how the military established that Uda had died. It gave no evidence for the specific acts attributed to him, and Hamas had not confirmed his death in the material available. Israel.com has not independently verified the killing.