‘Leaderless’ Hamas is scrambling to find a new chief after October 7 orchestrator Yahya Sinwar dropped off the radar, Israel claims

Hamas is leaderless and is trying to find a new chief after orchestrator Yahya Sinwar disappeared from the radar on October 7, Israel claims.

In recent weeks, Israel has concentrated its military operations in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza – Sinwar’s birthplace and just a few kilometers from Rafah.

Israel has pledged to eradicate the terror group behind last year’s deadly attack on southern Israel, with the IDF insisting its military operations tighten the noose around the terror group’s leadership and strongholds.

Despite mounting pressure, Hamas officials have said Sinwar – the group’s leader in Gaza – would rather fight to the death than surrender or go into exile.

However, the IDF has now said that ‘there is no one who can take charge of Hamas’ after Sinwar ‘escaped’ the coastal strip via underground tunnels.

Defense Secretary Yoav Gallant said: “Hamas’ Gaza operation is unresponsive, without local leadership for dialogue, prompting outside leaders to seek a new internal head.”

He added: “Hamas does not trust its commanders, this is a very, very high profile case.

“The Hamas-Gaza station is not answering, there is no one to talk to as leadership on the ground.

“That means there is a tender for who will govern Gaza.”

Mohammed Deif, the shadowy head of Hamas’ armed wing who also grew up in the Khan Yunis refugee camp, is seen as a potential replacement.

Last week, the Israeli army released a video showing Sinwar with his family members in a tunnel in Palestinian territory.

The black-and-white footage, which the IDF said was taken on October 10, shows a man believed to be Sinwar being led through a tunnel with a woman and three children. It is said to be his first since the war broke out between Israel and Hamas.

“This is how he escaped with his family from an underground tunnel to a secure complex that he had built in advance,” said army spokesman Daniel Hagari.

‘This video of Sinwar is the result of our hunt. This hunt will not stop until we capture him dead or alive.”

The authenticity of the video has not been independently verified.

Hagari said Israeli forces discovered the video on a security camera during an operation in a tunnel, without elaborating on the location.

“The footage shows Hamas leader and mass murderer Yahya Sinwar on the run with his children and one of his wives,” he told a briefing.

It is not clear from the images where the tunnel was located.

Hagari said the video was recorded on October 10, three days after Hamas carried out an attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and about 250 people were taken hostage.

Israeli air, land and sea bombardments of Gaza in response have since killed more than 29,000 people, Palestinian health officials say.

Sinwar did not expect Israel’s retaliation for the Oct. 7 attack to be “so dangerous,” said his former prison colleague Esmat Mansour.

Sinwar’s calculations on the effect of Hamas’s deadly invasion of Israel on Black Saturday “did not go as planned,” and he believed the Israelis’ response was “unchecked, without any justification,” Mansour said.

He told Sky News that his terrorist friend’s plan was miscalculated and gave Israel an excuse to unleash hellfire on Hamas’ stronghold in Gaza.

Mansour said: “He did not expect that the operation would complicate things so much and go so far and become so dangerous and (give) Israel every reason and excuse to break all the rules.”

Sinwar’s plan was to use the massacre to promote his friend’s release from prison and turn him into another Hamas leader, as well as lift the “Israeli siege” on the area.

The 61-year-old Hamas chief is in line with the supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh.

The high-ranking terrorist, who speaks fluent Hebrew, spent 20 years in prison before being released in 2011 after a hostage situation.

Sinwar was one of more than a thousand Israeli prison inmates who were released to Palestine in exchange for just one Israeli soldier: Gilad Shalit.

Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas in 2006 at the age of 19 and spent five years in captivity.

He was the first hostage soldier returned alive to Israel since 1985.

Israel says Sinwar is a ‘dead man walking’ – if they can find him.

Deadly fighting raged in Gaza today after Israel warned that unless Hamas frees all hostages, it will continue its offensive during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, including in the far south of Rafah.

Global concern has grown over the fate of the 1.4 million Palestinians forced into Rafah, near the Egyptian border, where they have endured bombardments and severe food shortages in crowded makeshift shelters and tents.

Overnight strikes and battles in Gaza killed more than 100 Palestinians, mostly women and children, pushing the death toll above 29,000, the Health Ministry said in the Hamas-held area, while fighting was heaviest in Khan Yunis, just north of Rafah.

War Cabinet member Benny Gantz warned on Sunday that the Israeli army is ready to push deeper into Rafah during Ramadan, which, based on the lunar calendar, starts around March 10.

“The world needs to know, and Hamas leaders need to know: if the hostages are not home by Ramadan, the fighting will continue everywhere, including in the Rafah area,” said Gantz, a former military chief of staff.

He added: “Hamas has a choice. They can surrender, release the hostages, and the citizens of Gaza can celebrate the festival of Ramadan.”

Gantz said Israel would allow the evacuation of civilians from Rafah and “minimize civilian casualties” — but so far the country has not specified where Palestinians might flee as large swaths of territory fall after more than four months of devastating war have been razed to the ground.

Egypt has stressed that it does not want Gazans to flee across the border, arguing that this would facilitate an attempt to rid Gaza of its Palestinian population – an objective that Israel denies.

Satellite images show that Egypt has begun building a walled fence parallel to the Gaza border, apparently as a precaution in case of a mass refugee flight.