The military said that Mushtaha was the “right-hand man and one of the closest associates” of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader, and was considered the most senior figure in the Hamas political bureau.
Sameh al-Siraj, who held the security portfolio in Hamas’s political bureau and Labor Committee, and Sami Oudeh, commander of Hamas’s General Security Mechanism, were also killed, it said.
Israeli warplanes struck and killed the three while they were taking shelter in “a fortified and equipped underground compound in the northern Gaza Strip,” it added.