Hamas commander Hussein Fayyad, whom the Israeli military claimed to have killed last May, has appeared in a newly surfaced video, according to the Palestinian media outlet Arab48.
The footage, widely shared on social media on Wednesday, shows a man resembling Fayyad speaking at a funeral in northern Gaza, standing amid the ruins of a bombed-out building, with a group of men listening.
Fayyad is the commander of Hamas’s Beit Hanoun Battalion. Beit Hanoun was one of the first areas targeted by Israel in 2023.
In his speech, he praised Gaza’s resistance against Israel’s military assault, saying, “When the strong doesn’t achieve its goals, it is defeated, but the weak, which prevented the strong from achieving its goals – it is the victor.”
He also dismissed Israel’s offensive as futile.
“Thanks to God, the Israeli army only got stones, body parts and blood,” he said, saying that Gaza remains defiant. “Gaza has emerged unbreakable. We all saw yesterday how Gaza stood victorious, with its head held high,” he added.
The Israeli military has admitted that its claim of killing Hamas’ commander in May was based on flawed intelligence, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.
On Wednesday night, the Israeli army acknowledged that the findings were “not accurate enough” and that his death had only been “highly likely.”
Israel claimed in May that Fayyad, a senior commander of Hamas’ Qassam Brigades, was killed in an underground operation in Jabaliya tunnel.
In a statement at the time, the Israeli military said, “As part of IDF operational activity in the area of Jabaliya, IAF special forces and the ‘Yahalom’ eliminated the terrorist Hussein Fiad, the Commander of Hamas’ Beit Hanoun Battalion, during special operational activity in an underground area.”
According to its initial statement, he was responsible for coordinating anti-tank missiles fired at Israeli territory and mortar attacks toward “Israeli communities near the northern Gaza Strip”.
His reappearance has raised questions about Israel’s credibility and its battlefield claims.
This is not the first time Israel has erroneously claimed the killing of key figures, as noted by the Times of Israel.
According to Israeli media reports, the Israeli army struggled to counter Hamas’s Beit Hanoun Battalion. Initially assumed by the Israeli military to be one of the weaker arms of Hamas, the battalion proved formidable.
Israeli reports say that Hamas’s Beit Hanoun Battalion adapted to the battlefield and began engaging in guerrilla warfare, which in January 2025 alone resulted in several Israeli soldiers being killed and wounded.
