Yahya Sinwar was the mastermind of the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Israel killed Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar in an armour-infantry assault in southern Gaza's Rafah. Israel's 828th Brigade conducted "intelligence-based targeted raids and operations," the Israel Defence Forces said, giving details of the damage assessment, where they found assault rifles and snipers in the hideout and Sinwar's body.
The IDF also shared a video of a tank firing at the Hamas leader's hideout in Rafah. The drone footage shows a building - circled in red - is the target. IDF claims that it is the building in which Yahya Sinwar barricaded himself.
The tank fires a round, destroying the structure, which was already in ruins. The troops then moved in for damage assessment and found AK assault rifles, an SVD Dragunov sniper rifle, magazines, and live ammunition.
Photo Credit: IDF
In another video, the ground troops are seen operating in the area where Yahya Sinwar was eliminated. After the "success" of the operation MG Yaron Finkelman, Commanding Officer of the Southern Command, Israel Army, addressed the troops and said, "The perseverance, patience and terrain analysis...and the initiation of contact and you fired at them...is a matter that is very significant."
The Israeli troops found a body resembling Yahya Sinwar's, CNN reported. They cut his finger off for a DNA confirmation with a profile the troops had when Sinwar was in Israeli prison for two decades until his release in 2011 in a prisoner-swap deal.
Videos of Israeli troops searching the hideout surfaced on social media. One of the videos, assessed by NDTV, shows two Israeli soldiers standing next to a body (claimed to be Yahya Sinwar's) with the index finger of the left hand being chopped off. Meanwhile, CNN in its report said they analysed videos which showed his left hand with all five fingers, and then later with one finger missing.
He told CNN that the Hamas leader suffered other injuries, including from a tank shell, but he was confident a bullet to the head was what had killed the Hamas leader.
IDF claims that the tank round fired at the building eliminated the Hamas leader. The video assessed by NDTV showed the body's skull being ruptured, with injuries to the face, corroborating claims made by the chief pathologist in the CNN report.
Yahya Sinwar was the mastermind of the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel in which over 1,200 people were killed, resulting in a year-long Israeli operation in Gaza, killing over 40,000 including children.
Israel vowed to uproot Hamas from Gaza and has so far eliminated most of its top leadership, including its previous chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in July.
After Sinwar's death, Israel now hopes the hostages still stuck in Gaza would be returned. Sinwar's deputy Khalil Al-Hayya, who is viewed as a potential successor, struck a defiant note, saying hostages would not be returned until Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza and the war ended.
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