Issa is notorious for keeping a low profile, constantly moving around Gaza’s tunnel network.

It was only in 2011 that the first photograph of him emerged, standing next to Gilad Shalit, the IDF private who was taken hostage by Hamas before being freed in a landmark prisoner exchange.

A promising basketball player in his youth, Issa is a long-time Hamas member and considered influential within the terror group.

In 1987 he was imprisoned in Israel for his activities with Hamas during the First Intifada. A decade later, he was imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority for his role in a series of bombings, but escaped jail in 2000 when the Second Intifada erupted.

Israel has tried to kill him on several occasions, bombing his house three times, including during the 2021 offensive in Gaza.

Issa has four children, two of whom are believed to have died. His eldest son, Bara’a, died in 2009 after Egypt refused to allow him to enter from Gaza for medical treatment.

The Hamas commander’s other son was killed at the end of last year in an IDF airstrike.

Earlier in the war, the Israeli military released photos of what it said was Issa’s vacation home in al-Bureij in central Gaza. The photos showed a mansion, with a swimming pool and manicured lawns.

Issa’s death, if confirmed, could significantly affect Hamas’s combat operations in Gaza.

The commander has been credited with overhauling the operations of Hamas’s al-Qassam brigades, turning them into a fighting force capable of full-scale military operations.

Issa would be the highest-ranking Hamas official to be taken out by Israel in more than five months of war that has destroyed Gaza and killed tens of thousands of people, most of them civilians.

His death could also complicate efforts to secure a ceasefire and the release of hostages, although Israel says talks are continuing through Egyptian and Qatari mediators.