Abu Obeida, the masked spokesman of Hamas since 2007, was killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza City. Netanyahu quipped Hamas now has no spokesman left to confirm the targeted killing, silencing the terror group’s most notorious voice of incitement.

Israel announced on August 31, 2025, that Abu Obeida, the longtime spokesman of Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, had been killed in a precision airstrike in Gaza City’s upscale Rimal neighborhood. Defense Minister Israel Katz hailed the operation as a significant milestone, crediting combined Shin Bet intelligence and Israeli Air Force execution. “This is one of the most important achievements of the war,” Katz said, stressing that Hamas’s propaganda machine had been dealt a decisive blow.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the strike in a cabinet session, delivering the news with a barbed quip. “I notice there is no one addressing this question on the Hamas side,” he told ministers. “The silence tells us everything.” Netanyahu’s remark underscored that Hamas, which had relied on Abu Obeida to issue threats and frame narratives, suddenly found itself without its most visible voice.

Abu Obeida, born Hudayfa Samir Abdallah al-Kahlout, emerged as Hamas’s chief spokesman during the organization’s bloody 2007 takeover of Gaza. Over the years, he turned into the masked figure who would appear on Al-Jazeera and other networks whenever Hamas sought to boast of attacks or issue ultimatums. Always concealed behind a red-and-white keffiyeh, his delivery was measured but menacing, the carefully crafted voice of Hamas’s war machine.

His statements were not mere propaganda but active tools of psychological warfare. After the October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel, in which more than 1,200 people were killed and hundreds taken hostage, Abu Obeida glorified the bloodshed. “This is the beginning of liberation,” he declared in a televised statement. “October 7 will not be the last — we will repeat it again and again until all of Palestine is free.”

He consistently justified the targeting of civilians and openly threatened to kill hostages in response to Israeli strikes. In one widely cited address, he warned: “Every targeting of our people who are safe in their homes without warning will be met with executions of your civilian captives.” This language left no ambiguity: Abu Obeida positioned Hamas as willing to commit war crimes to advance its cause, and he relished publicizing it.

Beyond October 7, his record was filled with incitement. In May 2021, during Hamas rocket barrages against Israeli cities, he declared, “Tel Aviv and beyond are within the reach of our rockets. What is coming will be harder and more bitter.” In another address, he proclaimed that Hamas’s mission was to wage “a war of attrition against the Zionist enemy until the day of liberation.”

To Israelis, Abu Obeida became the personification of Hamas’s brutality — a faceless figure who glorified terror while hiding underground. His elimination, therefore, carries weight not just as a military achievement but as a symbolic silencing of the voice that repeatedly vowed Israel’s destruction.

Israeli officials emphasized that the strike was not only about symbolism. “Hamas’s propaganda is part of its arsenal,” one security official noted. “By removing Abu Obeida, we cut off a channel of psychological warfare that has served them for years.” Analysts observed that while Hamas may attempt to appoint a new spokesman, none are likely to possess the same gravitas or recognition. Abu Obeida’s identity as a mysterious, ever-present figure had taken on mythic proportions in Gaza and among Hamas supporters abroad.

For Netanyahu, the strike offered an opportunity to reinforce Israel’s momentum. His pointed humor at the cabinet table drew a sharp contrast: for years, Abu Obeida mocked Israel with threats of annihilation, but now he was silent. The prime minister framed that silence as proof of Israel’s ability to dismantle Hamas layer by layer.

The reaction inside Israel was one of grim satisfaction. Families of October 7 victims noted that while his death could not undo their loss, it at least ended the career of the man who celebrated their pain. “He cheered for the murder of our loved ones,” said one bereaved father in an interview with Israeli radio. “Now his voice is gone forever.”

The international response was more muted, with some outlets focusing on civilian casualties reported in the same strike. Yet in Israel, there was little doubt that the benefits outweighed the risks. Hamas, already battered militarily, had lost its face and its mouthpiece.

Abu Obeida’s death will not end Hamas’s ability to fight, but it removes a central figure in its effort to inspire, terrify, and manipulate. For nearly two decades, his words glorified terror and promised endless repeats of October 7. Now, silenced by an Israeli bomb, his absence speaks louder than his threats.

The elimination of Abu Obeida was both an operational success and a symbolic victory. For Israel, it marked the end of a voice of hatred that had promised perpetual bloodshed. For Hamas, it left a void that no replacement can easily fill. In a war where words have carried as much weight as rockets, the silencing of Abu Obeida is a turning point.

In a final twist, even as Israel celebrated the strike, Hamas finally got around to admitting perhaps the most devastating loss of the war. After months of denial, the group at last confirmed the death of Yahya Sinwar, its Gaza leader and mastermind of the October 7 atrocities. The double blow — the loss of Sinwar in leadership and Abu Obeida in propaganda — has left Hamas reeling, both headless and voiceless, at a critical juncture in the war.