Friday, October 18, 2024 - Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who masterminded the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza, may have been killed, according to the Israeli military.
A statement released on Thursday afternoon said: “During
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operations in the Gaza Strip, three
terrorists were eliminated.
The IDF [is] checking the possibility that one of the
terrorists was Yahya Sinwar. At this stage, the identity of the terrorists
cannot be confirmed.”
“In the building where the terrorists were eliminated, there
were no signs of the presence of hostages in the area. The forces that are
operating in the area are continuing to operate with the required caution.”
Several security officials, speaking anonymously, told
Israeli media that the bodies had been taken to Israel for DNA tests, and that
the IDF assesses “with high probability” that one of those killed was Sinwar.
Israel’s Kan Radio reported that the Hamas
leader was killed “by chance”, and not as a result of intelligence
gathering. The station also said the bodies were found with lots of cash and
fake IDs.
Israel's Army Radio said the incident had occurred during a
ground operation in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip during which
Israeli troops killed three militants and took their bodies.
It said visual evidence suggested it was likely that one of
the men was Sinwar and DNA tests were being conducted. Israel has samples of
Sinwar's DNA from his period in an Israeli jail.
Sinwar, the chief architect of the Oct. 7, 2023
attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war, has been at the top of
Israel's wanted list ever since.
Sinwar, 61, was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp in
southern Gaza.
Among his childhood friends were Mohammed
Deif, Hamas’s military chief, whom Israel claimed to have killed in an
airstrike three months ago, and Mohammed Dahlan, an influential member of the
secular Fatah party now living in exile in the UAE.
He joined Hamas at an early age, spending much of his youth
in and out of Israeli prison. He rose through the ranks as an infamous
enforcer, in charge of finding and killing suspected Palestinian collaborators
with Israel.
In 1989, he was sentenced to four life sentences for the
abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians he
suspected of collaboration. He served 22 years before being released in the
2011 prisoner exchange in which Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was returned for
1,000 Palestinians.
He was elected by other Hamas members in a secret ballot as
Hamas’s chief in Gaza in 2017, surviving several Israeli assassination
attempts.
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