Revealed: Israel came close to reaching Sinwar 5 times - before he was eliminated

2 November 2024   

Hamas sources told the London-based newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat this evening (Saturday) that Israel came close to capturing Yahya Sinwar at least five times during the war - three times above ground and twice below, before he was eliminated under private surveillance. According to the report - published in 'Kan News' - in one of the cases, during January 2024, Sinwar was a few dozen meters away from an IDF force operating in Block G in the Khan Yunis refugee camp, while he was in one of the houses, along with only his personal security guard. According to the sources, Sinwar - who insisted at that stage not to leave Khan Yunis - was armed at the time and prepared for an expected break-in by IDF forces into the house, but the movement of Hamas terrorists from house to house during the fighting with IDF forces meant that they were the ones who found him in one of the houses. Immediately after he was discovered, Sinwar was smuggled from that house, through the breaches from which the terrorists entered, to another place one kilometer away, where he was with his brother Muhammad Sinwar and the Khan Yunis battalion commander who was eliminated, Rafe Salameh - dozens of meters from Nasser Hospital, before each of them went their separate ways. According to the report, the three, as well as the commander of Hamas' military wing, Muhammad Deif, would meet with each other from time to time in a tunnel or safe house in Khan Yunis, and then go their separate ways. The sources said that his brothers Muhammad and Rafa Salameh were the ones who pressured him to leave Khan Yunis for Rafah in February, since Khan Yunis was almost completely controlled by the IDF and was under siege, and Sinwar escaped by moving underground and above ground to Rafah. Sinwar remained in Rafah for many months, and from July he remained in Ma'ba - the area where he was eliminated, while he was above and below ground. According to the report, during that period he would communicate with his brothers and other senior Hamas officials, as well as with the terrorist organization's leadership abroad - through periodic written messages, and through secure channels that he defined himself. This is how he conveyed his messages regarding the negotiations. Sinwar was indeed in the various Rafah tunnels, including the one where the six abductees were murdered, and sources speculate that he was the one who personally ordered their murder, as IDF forces approached in late September. The one who accompanied Sinwar throughout most of the war was his nephew, Ibrahim Muhammad Sinwar, the son of his brother Muhammad. Ibrahim was killed in an IDF attack during August, when he emerged from a tunnel shaft to locate IDF movements while accompanying his uncle. After Ibrahim was killed, Sinwar sent his family a written message in which he provided the circumstances of Ibrahim's death, and the location where he was buried, which the family received two days after Sinwar himself was killed. In other words, it took more than two months for the written message to arrive. In the period before his death, Sinwar and his companions had limited food supplies, and in the last three days they did not eat at all, and prepared to fight against the forces The IDF, and therefore they moved from one destroyed house to another. In the 15 days before he met his death, Mahmoud Hamdan, the commander of the Tel a-Sultan battalion, who was killed with him that day, tried to smuggle Sinwar out of that area towards a safe area, but due to the intensity of IDF activity, all attempts failed. And what about Sinwar's wife and children, who were seen going down the tunnel with him before the war began? One of the sources told the newspaper that they are safe and were not near him, after Sinwar was forced to find a safe place for them far from him, in light of the persecution that followed him. However, they would receive a written message from him every month or month and a half.