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By Jonathan Saul, James Mackenzie
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar was tracked by an Israeli mini drone as he lay dying within the ruins of a constructing in southern Gaza and filmed him slumped in a chair lined in mud, in accordance with video launched by Israeli authorities on Thursday.
Because the drone hovered close by, the video confirmed him throwing a stick at it, in an obvious act of desperation.
After an intensive manhunt that had lasted for greater than a yr, the Israeli troops that killed Sinwar have been initially unaware that they’d caught their nation’s primary enemy after a gun battle on Wednesday, Israeli officers mentioned.
Intelligence providers had been progressively proscribing the world the place he might function, the navy mentioned on Thursday, after dental data, fingerprints and DNA testing offered ultimate affirmation of Sinwar’s demise.
However not like different militant leaders tracked down and killed by Israel, together with Hamas navy commander Mohammed Deif who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on July 13, the operation which lastly killed Sinwar was not a deliberate and focused strike, or an operation carried out by elite commandos.
As an alternative, officers mentioned he was discovered by infantry troopers from the Bislach Brigade, a unit that usually trains future unit commanders. The troopers have been looking out an space within the Tal El Sultan space of southern Gaza on Wednesday, the place they believed senior members of Hamas have been situated.
The troops noticed three suspected militants transferring between buildings and opened fireplace, resulting in a gunfight throughout which Sinwar escaped right into a ruined constructing.
In accordance with accounts in Israeli media, tank shells and a missile have been additionally fired on the constructing.
On Thursday, the navy launched footage from a mini drone that it mentioned confirmed Sinwar, badly wounded within the hand, sitting on a chair, his face lined in a shawl. The movie exhibits him trying to throw a stick on the drone, in a futile effort to knock it down.
At this stage, Israeli navy spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari mentioned, Sinwar was solely recognized as a fighter, however troops entered and located him with a weapon, a flak jacket and 40,000 shekels ($10,731.63).
“He tried to flee and our forces eradicated him,” he informed reporters in a televised briefing.
Hamas has not made any remark itself, however sources inside the group have mentioned that the indications they’ve seen counsel Sinwar was certainly killed by Israeli troops.
“The handfuls of operations carried out by the IDF and the ISA over the past yr, and in current weeks within the space the place he was eradicated, restricted Yahya Sinwar’s operational motion as he was pursued by the forces and led to his elimination,” the Israeli navy mentioned in a press release.
Within the final months of his life, Sinwar, the principle architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel that set off the battle in Gaza, seems to have stopped utilizing telephones and different communication tools that will have allowed Israel’s highly effective intelligence providers to trace him down.
Israeli officers mentioned they believed he was hiding in one of many huge community of tunnels that Hamas dug beneath Gaza over the previous 20 years, however as increasingly more have been uncovered by Israeli troops, even the tunnels have been no assure of escaping seize.
The pinnacle of Israel’s navy, Lieutenant Normal Herzi Halevi, mentioned Israel’s pursuit of Sinwar over the previous yr drove him “to behave like a fugitive, inflicting him to alter areas a number of occasions”.
Israeli officers, who knew Sinwar as a ruthless and dedicated enemy, have been lengthy involved that he had surrounded himself with a few of the 101 Israeli and overseas hostages nonetheless held in Gaza as a human protect to guard himself from Israeli assaults.
However no hostages have been discovered close by when he was lastly trapped on Wednesday, though Hagari mentioned samples of his DNA have been situated in a tunnel a couple of hundred metres from the place six Israeli hostages have been executed by Hamas on the finish of August.
($1 = 3.7273 shekels)
(Modifying by Leslie Adler and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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