By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-10-17 23:23:48 | Updated at 2024-10-18 02:23:19
3 hours ago
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed during a gun battle in southern Gaza on Wednesday by Israeli troops who were initially unaware that they had caught their country’s No 1 enemy, Israeli officials said.
Intelligence services had been searching for Sinwar for months and had been gradually restricting the area where he could operate, the military said on Thursday, after dental records, fingerprints and DNA testing provided final confirmation of Sinwar’s death.
Hamas has not made any comment itself, but sources within the group have said that the indications they have seen suggest Sinwar was indeed killed by Israeli troops.
“The dozens of operations carried out by the IDF and the ISA over the last year, and in recent weeks in the area where he was eliminated, restricted Yahya Sinwar’s operational movement as he was pursued by the forces and led to his elimination,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
But unlike other militant leaders tracked down and killed by Israel, including Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, who was killed in an Israeli air strike on July 13, the operation which finally killed Sinwar was not a planned and targeted strike.
Instead, officials said he was found by infantry soldiers searching an area in the Tal El Sultan area of southern Gaza on Wednesday, where they believed senior members of Hamas were located.
