On October 7 of last year, the Palestinian independence organization Hamas launched a sudden attack by entering the border of Israel. Israel then launched a counter-attack on Gaza. Israeli forces have been invading there for six months.
1,200 people were killed and hundreds of people were taken hostage in the attack by Hamas in Israel. Israel launched the campaign vowing to crush and destroy Hamas. The invasion was carried out so that Hamas could no longer pose a threat and so that Israel could bring home all its hostages.
According to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, 33,175 people have been killed in Gaza so far in Israeli attacks. Most of them are women and children. Besides, another 75 thousand 886 people were injured. Much of Gaza has been destroyed. The houses, mosques, hospitals were not spared from the attack. The whole of Gaza is now a pile of rubble.
Israel says it has killed thousands of Hamas fighters and destroyed a vast network of tunnels under Gaza, which Hamas was using to launch attacks.
BBC Verify has verified Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) public statements and social media posts, and verified claims made by Israel as a state.
How many Hamas leaders have been killed?
Before October 7, Hamas was believed to have had about 30,000 fighters in Gaza, according to a report citing IDF commanders.
Many of Hamas’ senior political figures, such as Ismail Haniyeh, who is believed to be the leader of the armed group, live abroad. But many of its military leadership structures are believed to be inside Gaza.
In a recent statement, the IDF said it had killed about 13,000 Hamas fighters since the war began, although it did not say how it calculated that number.
Israel also named Hamas leaders it said had been killed. A total of 113 people have been named in this way since October, most of whom were reported killed in the first three months of the war.
However, the Israeli military did not report any senior Hamas leaders killed in Gaza until March this year. On March 26, the IDF said it had killed Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’ military wing.
He is considered one of Israel’s most wanted. He was the most senior leader of the armed group to be killed since the war began.
The United States has said it also believes Marwan Issa was killed, but Hamas has not confirmed this.
The IDF named all those killed in the attack as senior Hamas leaders, although it was not possible to verify whether they were actually members of Hamas.
One of those named in this category was Mustafa Thuraya. In January, the car carrying him was attacked. He was then working as a freelance journalist in southern Gaza.
Names appearing more than once on the list of killed Hamas members have been omitted. Saleh al-Arouri, the political leader of Hamas outside Gaza, died in an explosion in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, in January. Israel was mainly blamed for the attack.
Experts spoken to by the BBC said many prominent leaders of the Gaza armed group, including Yahya Sinwar, are believed to be still alive.
Mairav Jonszein, senior analyst on Israel-Palestinian affairs at the International Crisis Group, said the IDF has not even reached the top leadership of Hamas.
Jonszein said one of their symbolic objectives was to capture key Hamas leaders and remove Hamas from control of the area. But none of these have yet been achieved.
How many hostages are there in Gaza?
According to Israeli official statistics, 253 people were taken hostage on 7 October. Of these, 109 were released as part of prisoner exchanges or in separate deals. The Israeli army directly rescued three people in a military operation. The bodies of 12 hostages were recovered, three of whom Israel admitted were killed in the IDF operation. Among the hostages confirmed to be still alive, the youngest is 18 and the oldest is 85.
At least 34 of the remaining 129 hostages died, Israel said. Hamas said the number of dead hostages was higher due to IDF airstrikes. But the truth of these allegations is not available.
Ariel and Kefir are the two youngest hostages taken by Hamas in the attack.
One of them was four years old and the other just nine months old at the time of abduction. Their deaths were reported but could not be confirmed.
Has Israel destroyed the tunnel network of Hamas?
Hamas says its tunnel stretches 500 kilometers, although this cannot be verified. As part of eliminating Hamas, Israel promised to destroy the extensive network of tunnels under Gaza, which it used to transport goods and move people.
Think of the Gaza Strip as one layer for civilians and then another layer for Hamas, IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus said in October. We are trying to get to the second level that Hamas has created.
Hamas has previously said its tunnel network stretches 500 kilometers (311 miles), although there is no way to independently verify this. The BBC has asked the IDF how many tunnels there are and how much of the total tunnel network they have destroyed.
In response, they said their forces had destroyed a large part of the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza. The IDF has occasionally penetrated Hamas tunnels, showing evidence that it has discovered many such tunnels.
For example, in November the IDF released video footage of part of a tunnel network under Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. They claim that the site was used by Hamas as their command center.
BBC Verify has attempted to determine the extent of the Israeli army’s entire network of tunnels. For this reason, between October 7, 2023 and March 26, 2024, the Gaza social media platform Telegram reviewed all of the IDF’s messages referring to the tunnel.
Of these, 198 messages mentioned finding tunnels. The Israeli army claims to have found the tunnel and the tunnel shaft.
Another 141 messages claimed that the IDF had destroyed or demolished a tunnel. Most of them did not give specific details or specific location. It is therefore not possible to be certain which network the IDF has uncovered or destroyed.
Gaza’s underground labyrinth has several sections. It consists of tunnel routes and chambers of various sizes, as well as the part of the tunnel that meets the surface called the tunnel shaft.
Of the messages analyzed by BBC Verify, 36 attacks mentioned the destruction of more than four hundred tunnel shafts.
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However, it would be misleading to compare a shaft with an entire tunnel, said Dr. Daphne Richmond-Barack. He teaches at Reichman University in Israel. He is an expert in underground warfare. According to him, even if the tunnel shaft collapses, the tunnel network inside remains intact. “I don’t think we’ve seen the tunnels completely destroyed in this war,” he said.
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