India, May 28 -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Wednesday that Mohammad Sinwar, the head of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, was assassinated by Israeli forces.

Mohammad was the brother of Yahya Sinwar, the former Hamas chief who was assassinated by Israel last year in Gaza. A hardliner who rose through the ranks of the group's armed wing in Khan Younis, he was also nicknamed the "ghost" for surviving multiple assassination attempts by Israeli intelligence.

Born on September 15, 1975, Sinwar had rarely appeared in public or spoken to the media. His family was among the lakhs of Palestinians who escaped the Nakba, or catastrophe, during the birth of Israel during the 1948 war, and settled in the Gaza Strip. ...