Hamas on Sunday confirmed the killing of senior leader Raed Saad and several aides by Israeli forces. The group's Gaza chief, Khalil al-Hayya, announced this on Al-Aqsa TV, saying, "The Palestinian people are currently going through difficult times and suffering greatly... with the martyrdom of more than 70,000 people, the latest of whom was the mujahid commander Raed Saad and his companions." Israel said Saad was "one of the architects" of the October 7, 2023 attack. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he and the defense minister personally approved Saad's assassination. Saad was a veteran Hamas member and the armed wing’s second-in-command, working inside Hamas’s tunnel network beneath Gaza City, according to two Arab intelligence officials. The killing threatens the fragile ceasefire brokered in mid-October by the US and regional allies. This truce helped release 20 surviving hostages in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners but has not stopped violence. Since the truce, local health officials report over 300 Palestinians, including children, killed in Israeli strikes. The Israeli military reported at least three soldier deaths in combat. International mediators, including former US President Donald Trump, have pushed for the next ceasefire phase requiring Hamas to disarm and allow a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Hamas rejects disarmament, seeing armed resistance as core to its beliefs. Netanyahu warned that if Hamas does not disarm voluntarily, Israel will use force to do so “the hard way.”