The Palestine Liberation Organisation also expressed its condolences over the "martyrdom of the great national leader Yahya Sinwar".
The killing of Sinwar had raised hopes of a turning point in the war, including for families of the Israeli hostages and Gazans enduring a dire humanitarian crisis.
However as Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya mourned Sinwar in a video statement Friday, he reiterated the Palestinian group's position that no hostages would be released "unless the aggression against our people in Gaza stops".
And Israeli forces pummelled Gaza with air strikes Friday, with rescuers recovering the bodies of three Palestinian children from the rubble of their home in the north of the territory, according to Gaza's civil defence agency.
Hamas: Sinwar was martyred in clashes with occupation forces
Hamas announced yesterday that Yahya Sinwar was martyred in an armed clash with the Israeli occupation forces in the Tel Al Sultan neighbourhood in Rafah. Khalil al-Haya, a member of Hamas' political bureau, confirmed in a video speech Friday that Sinwar was martyred in a clash with the occupation forces. He added that Hamas will continue its path until the establishment of a Palestinian state on all Palestinian land with Jerusalem as its capital. He said that the late head of the political bureau continued to give after leaving the occupation prisons, adding that Sinwar was a continuation of the caravan of martyrs in the footsteps of the founding Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Al-Haya emphasised that the blood of the martyrs will continue to be a motive for steadfastness and steadfastness, and that the martyrdom of the head of Hamas' political bureau and previous leaders will only make the movement stronger and more solid. (QNA)
"We always thought that when this moment arrived the war would end and our lives would return to normal," Jemaa Abou Mendi, a 21-year-old Gaza resident, told AFP.
"But unfortunately, the reality on the ground is quite the opposite. The war has not stopped, and the killings continue unabated."
US President Joe Biden, whose government is Israel's top arms provider, said Sinwar's death was "an opportunity to seek a path to peace, a better future in Gaza without Hamas".
In a joint statement, Biden and the leaders of Germany, France and Britain emphasised "the immediate necessity to bring the hostages home to their families, for ending the war in Gaza, and ensure humanitarian aid reaches civilians".
Israel's campaign to crush Hamas and bring back the hostages has killed 42,500 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures which the UN considers reliable.
A "conservative" estimate puts the death toll among children in Gaza at over 14,100, said James Elder, spokesman of the UN children's agency Unicef.
For the 1mn children currently in the besieged territory, "Gaza is the real-world embodiment of hell on Earth," Elder said.
Criticism has been mounting over the civilian toll and lack of food and aid reaching Gaza, where the UN has warned of famine.
Israel is also fighting a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The two sides had exchanged rocket fire since October 7, with Israel sending ground troops across the Lebanese border last month.
Hezbollah said Friday it fired a salvo of rockets at the Israeli city of Haifa and areas to its north.
It later said it launched "a swarm of explosives-laden drones" at an "air missile defence base" east of the central Israeli city of Hadera.
The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon warned that the escalating war "is causing widespread destruction of towns and villages" in the country's south.
