Over the past year, Israel has eliminated Hamas leaders one by one; The head of the country’s army declared yesterday that the terrorist group’s military wing has been “defeated.”
But there is still one high-value target: October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar.
The terrorist group’s leader has remained elusive during the year-long war, with the only apparent glimpse of him coming in a video filmed just a couple of days after the bloody conflict began.
The black and white footage, discovered by IDF troops during a raid earlier this year, shows a man believed to be Sinwar walking through a tunnel along with his wife and three children, while carrying a large bag. .
‘In that bag there are about 25 kg of dynamite. There are at least 20 hostages around him,” according to Kobi Michael, Sinwar’s former Shin Bet interrogator. “Some times we have had the opportunity to kill him, but if we do, he will kill all the hostages around him.”
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has remained elusive during the year of war (pictured in 2022)
The black and white images (one of them pictured above), supposedly taken on October 10, show a man said to be Sinwar being led through a tunnel along with a woman and three children; They are said to be his first since the war between Israel and Hamas. burst
Palestinians walk past the rubble of houses destroyed during the Israeli military offensive, amid the conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on July 10, 2024.
Some 97 hostages who were kidnapped on October 7, 2023 are believed to still be in Gaza a year later. It is not known how many have died in captivity.
In a year of retaliation for Hamas’ cross-border terrorist attack, relentless Israeli bombing of Gaza has killed more than 40,000 people, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
Israel’s military said it had hit more than 40,000 targets, found 4,700 tunnels and destroyed 1,000 rocket launch sites during its year-long bombardment of the Strip.
Sinwar has no regrets about the Oct. 7 attacks, people in contact with him have said, despite unleashing an Israeli invasion that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, devastated his homeland and wreaked destruction on his ally Hezbollah.
The list of Hamas leaders killed in the following months includes Mohammed Deif, the head of the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, who was killed in an airstrike in Gaza.
Saleh al-Arouri, founding commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, was killed in an explosion in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, which is a stronghold of Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas and part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance.” .
Then in July, the leader of Hamas’s political wing, Ismail Haniyeh, was blown up, probably by Israel, while visiting Tehran to attend the inauguration of the Iranian president.
Sinwar, 62, was appointed Hamas leader after Haniyeh’s assassination.
In July, the leader of Hamas’s political wing, Ismail Haniyeh, was blown up while visiting Tehran to attend the inauguration of the Iranian president. Pictured with Sinwar in 2019
A poster of Hamas’ new leader Yahya Al-Sinwar hangs on a wall in Palestine Square in Tehran, Iran, on August 12, 2024.
“Yahya Sinwar will never give up,” said Michael The times. ‘He dreams of remaining as Hamas leader in Gaza. Now he is thinking about the next massacre. That man must be killed.
Operating from the shadows of a network of labyrinthine tunnels beneath Gaza, Israeli sources said Sinwar and his brother, also a senior commander, have so far dodged airstrikes.
Sinwar operates secretly, moving constantly and using trusted couriers for non-digital communications, according to Hamas officials.
Last month, reports emerged that Sinwar had been killed in an Israeli airstrike, but were unconfirmed and intelligence sources refuted the claims.
Israeli journalist Ben Caspit quoted sources as saying: “There were also times in the past when he disappeared and we thought he was dead, but then he reappeared.”
In December, reports circulated that Sinwar may have been killed, wounded or may have fled to the Sinai in Egypt.
It was later revealed that he had lost contact with his subordinates as part of his concealment tactics.
Sinwar was born in Khan Younis and became the protégé of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of Hamas, when he was young.
His brutal reputation earned him the nickname “The Butcher of Khan Younis,” and he spent a period in Israeli jail before rising through the ranks of Hamas.
Their elimination is one of the Israeli army’s top priorities. He is considered the architect of the Oct. 7 massacre, in which Hamas and other terrorist groups killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostage, according to Israeli counts.
A pro-Palestinian protester holds a photograph of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar during a march ahead of the anniversary of the October 7 attack near the White House in Washington.
“Yahya Sinwar is the face of evil,” said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an IDF spokesman, in the days after the attack. ‘He is the mastermind behind this, as was Bin Laden.
‘He built his career murdering Palestinians when he understood that they were collaborators. This is how he became known as the butcher of Khan Younis.
Hecht vowed that Israeli troops would not rest until they found and killed him.
The IDF says the man circled in red above is Yahya Sinwar in images allegedly taken on October 10.
Ehud Yaari, 79, an Israeli journalist who claims to have been in contact with Sinwar through intermediaries until a few months ago, said Israel is “extremely reluctant” to kill the terrorist chief because of his use of hostages as human shields.
Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah using American-made bunker-buster bombs, which penetrate deeply into their targets before exploding, would undoubtedly kill any hostages around Sinwar, as well as the target itself.
‘Did they have opportunities? Yes. But who will give the order? I don’t know any Israeli leader who would approve of the bombing of Sinwar when there are Israeli hostages around it.