Over the past year, Israel has chipped away at Hamas’s leadership one by one – with the country’s army chief declaring yesterday that the terror group’s military wing had been “defeated.”
But there is one high-value target left: October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar.
The terror group’s leader has remained elusive throughout the years-long war, with the only visible glimpse of him coming in a video recorded just a few days after the start of the bloody conflict.
The black-and-white footage, discovered by IDF forces during a raid earlier this year, shows a man believed to be Sinwar making his way through a tunnel with his wife and three children while carrying a large bag.
‘That bag contains about 25 kg of dynamite. There are at least 20 hostages around him,” said Kobi Michael, Sinwar’s former Shin Bet interrogator. “We’ve had a chance to kill him a few times, but if we do, he’ll kill all the hostages around him.”
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has remained elusive throughout the years of war (pictured in 2022)
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The black and white footage (one pictured above), reportedly taken on October 10, shows a man believed to be Sinwar being led through a tunnel along with a woman and three children. These are reportedly his first since the war between Israel and Hamas. broke out
The IDF says the man circled in red above is Yahya Sinwar in footage reportedly taken on October 10
Palestinians walk past the rubble of houses destroyed during the Israeli military offensive, amid the conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 10, 2024
It is believed that approximately 97 hostages kidnapped on October 7, 2023 are still in Gaza a year later. It is not known how many people died in captivity.
In a year of retaliation for Hamas’ cross-border terror attack, brutal Israeli bombing of Gaza has resulted in the deaths of more than 40,000 people, the Hamas-led Health Ministry said.
The Israeli military said it hit more than 40,000 targets, found 4,700 tunnel shafts and destroyed 1,000 rocket launcher sites during its yearlong bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
Sinwar is unrepentant about the Oct. 7 attacks, people close to him say, despite unleashing an Israeli invasion that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, devastated his homeland and wreaked havoc on ally Hezbollah.
The list of Hamas leaders killed in the months since includes Mohammed Deif, the head of the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, who was killed in an airstrike on Gaza.
Saleh al-Arouri, one of the founders of the al-Qassam Brigades, was killed in an explosion in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, a stronghold of Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas and part of the ‘Axis of Resistance’ Iran.
Then in July, the leader of Hamas’s political wing, Ismail Haniyeh, was blown up, most likely by Israel, while visiting Tehran to attend the inauguration of the Iranian president.
Sinwar, 62, was appointed leader of Hamas after Haniyeh’s killing.
In July, the leader of Hamas’s political wing, Ismail Haniyeh, was blown up when he visited Tehran to attend the inauguration of the Iranian president. Pictured with Sinwar in 2019
A billboard of new Hamas leader Yahya Al-Sinwar hanging on a wall in Palestine Square in Tehran, Iran, August 12, 2024
“Yahya Sinwar will never surrender,” Michael said The times. ‘He dreams of staying on as leader of Hamas in Gaza. He is now thinking about the next massacre. That man must be killed.’
Operating from the shadows of a network of labyrinthine tunnels under Gaza, Israeli sources say Sinwar and his brother, also a top commander, have so far evaded air strikes.
Sinwar operates in secret, is constantly on the move and uses trusted messengers for non-digital communications, Hamas officials said.
Reports emerged last month that Sinwar had been killed in an Israeli airstrike, but these were not confirmed and intelligence sources refuted the claims.
Israeli journalist Ben Caspit quoted sources as saying: “There have been times in the past when he disappeared and we thought he was dead, but then he reappeared.”
Rumors circulated in December that Sinwar may have been killed, injured or fled to Sinai in Egypt.
It later emerged that he had lost contact with his subordinates as part of his hiding tactics.
Sinwar was born in Khan Younis and as a young man became the protégé of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas.
His brutal reputation earned him the nickname the Butcher of Khan Younis, and he spent a stint in Israeli prison before rising all the way into the ranks of Hamas.
His elimination is among the top priorities of the Israeli army. He is considered the architect of the October 7 massacre, in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage by Hamas and other terror groups, according to Israeli figures.
A pro-Palestinian protester holds a photo 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,” Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an IDF spokesman, said in the days after the attack. ‘He is the mastermind behind this, just like bin Laden.
‘He built his career on killing Palestinians when he understood they were collaborators. Thus he became known as the butcher of Khan Younis.’
Hecht vowed that Israeli forces would not rest until he was found and killed.
Ehud Yaari, 79, an Israeli journalist who claims to have contacted Sinwar through intermediaries until a few months ago, said Israel is “extremely reluctant” to kill the terror chief because of his use of hostages as human shields.
Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah using American bunker bombs, which penetrate deep into their targets before exploding, would undoubtedly kill all the hostages around Sinwar, as well as the target itself.
‘Did they have any chances? Yes. But who will give the command? “I don’t know any Israeli leader who would approve of the bombing of Sinwar with Israeli hostages around him.”