Ali al-Amoudi, seen as a possible successor to Yahya Sinwar, survived an Israeli attempt to kill him at the weekend, senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad said late on Saturday.
Israel's air force struck a building in western Gaza City on Saturday. Palestinian officials say the strike killed five people and wounded others. Within hours, Hamas sources were already doubting al-Amoudi had died, and Hamad says information Hamas has since received confirms he survived.
Hamad says Israel is breaking the Gaza ceasefire with its continued targeted killings and putting the deal at risk of collapse. He says the US is responsible for saving him and must press Israel to stop the killings.
After the strike, the Israeli military said al-Amoudi had helped plan the October 7 attack and called him Sinwar's "right-hand man."
Al-Amoudi sits on Hamas's political bureau and is one of the group's most senior surviving figures in Gaza. He used to run Sinwar's office and was close to him. Israel arrested him in 1994 and gave him a life sentence. He was freed in 2011 in the swap for Gilad Shalit, the same deal that freed Sinwar.
His standing has grown in recent years as many of Hamas's top leaders have been killed. He is competing with Nizar Awadallah to lead the group's political bureau in Gaza.