Sinwar ‘keeps dynamite bag and 20 hostages with him’ for protection

Over the past year, Israel has picked off the Hamas leadership one by one – with the chief of the country’s army declaring yesterday that the terror group’s military wing has been ‘defeated’. But its most wanted target still remains at large – October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar. 

The terror group’s leader has remained elusive throughout 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 images, uncovered by IDF troops during a raid earlier this year, show a man believed to be Sinwar making his way through a tunnel along with his wife and three children, while carrying a large bag.

‘In that bag is about 25kg of dynamite. Around him are at least 20 hostages,’ according to Kobi Michael, Sinwar’s former Shin Bet interrogator. ‘A few times we have had the chance to kill him, but if we do, he will kill all the hostages around him.’ Some 97 hostages who were kidnapped on October 7, 2023, are believed to still be in Gaza a year on. It is not known how many have died in captivity.

In a year of retribution for the cross-border terror attack by Hamas, relentless Israel bombing of Gaza has resulted in the deaths of more than 40,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Israel’s military said it has hit more than 40,000 targets, found 4,700 tunnel shafts and destroyed 1,000 rocket launcher sites during its year-long bombardment of the Strip.

Sinwar is unrepentant about the October 7 attacks, people in contact with him have said, despite unleashing an Israeli invasion that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, laid waste to his homeland and rained destruction 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, a founding commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, was assassinated in an explosion in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, which is a stronghold for 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, most likely by Israel, while visiting Tehran to attend the inauguration of the Iranian president.

Sinwar, 62, was appointed as the leader of Hamas after Haniyeh’s assassination. ‘Yahya Sinwar will never surrender,’ Michael told The Times . ‘He’s dreaming about staying on as the leader of Hamas in Gaza. He’s thinking now about the next massacre. That man must be killed.’ Operating from the shadows of a network of labyrinthine tunnels under Gaza, Israeli sources said Sinwar and his brother, also a top commander, have so far dodged airstrikes.

He moves constantly to avoid detection and uses trusted messengers for non-digital communication, according to Hamas officials. Negotiators would wait for days for responses filtered through a secretive chain of messengers. Last month, reports emerged 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 also been times in the past when he disappeared and we thought he was dead, but then he reappeared.’ In December, reports swirled that Sinwar may have been killed, wounded, or could have fled to Sinai in Egypt. It later emerged that he had been out of touch with his subordinates as part of his hiding tactics.

Want more stories like this from the Daily Mail? Hit the follow button above for more of the news you need.