A Lebanese drone targets Netanyahu’s house in Caesarea

An Israeli military official said Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar made a “serious mistake” that led to his death, as new details emerged about the operation that ended the life of Israel’s most wanted man.

According to the newspaper,telegraph“A Briton, Major in the Israeli army, Doron Spielman, explained that Sinwar made a mistake by leaving the tunnels that were expanding under the Gaza Strip, to a residential building in Rafah, where a drone was followed.

Sinwar had been hiding in the tunnels of Gaza since the war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, of which he was the most important planner. The Israeli army previously released a video clip it said recorded the movement of Sinwar and members of his family within the tunnel network.

Spielman said, “Israeli army forces forced Sinwar to make this mistake and move as a refugee, as they gradually closed the streets and blew up the tunnels around Rafah in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.”

For his part, the channel appearedi24 NEW“The Israeli army provided details related to the killing of Al-Sanwar, explaining that it began on Wednesday morning, when an Israeli force spotted a “suspect” near the Tal Al-Sultan area of ​​Rafah, south of Stri Gaza.

A force led by the commander of the 450th Division came in and saw 3 people: “two with cloaks on and the third with weapons.” The commander shot the gunman, but it was later revealed that he was Sinwar.

The commander of the 450th Division decided to shoot the gunman standing behind him, fearing that one of the other two would be kidnapped, so he shot and cut off his hand at in the end, it turned out to be Sinwar, according to the channel.

After the shooting, the two gunmen ran to a certain house, while Al-Sanwar ran to a nearby house and disappeared from the area. At the same time, an exchange of fire started, during which an Israeli soldier was seriously injured.

Later, Israeli forces fired shells at the house where Al-Sinwar was taking refuge, and the latter threw two bombs at the soldiers, before a drone saw him.

Then, the forces fired another shell that killed him, on Thursday morning, when his identity was confirmed and secret documents were found in his possession.

Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari had previously explained that Sinwar was carrying a pistol and 40,000 shekels (around 10,000 euros), according to Agence France-Presse.

Hagari confirmed that there were no Israeli hostages in the area around the three fighters, referring to hostages held since the October 7, 2023 attack.

On Friday, the Israeli army also revealed the identity of the comrade of the leader of the Hamas movement who was killed with him, as he said in a statement that his name is “Mahmoud Hamdan (Tom),” explaining that “he was the ‘ there was the commander of Tal al-Sultan’s battalion connected to Hamas, and he was responsible for protecting Al-Sinwar and the six hostages who were brought in.”

He said, “Several weeks ago, it was determined that (Tom) was likely killed based on intelligence information. Today we understand that the intelligence information on which the news of his killing was based was not accurate enough, so Hamdan continues the work to protect Al-Sinwar.”

He pointed out that “Today (Friday) Tom was killed in a clash with Israeli army soldiers about 200 meters away from the place where Al-Sinwar was killed.”

Meanwhile, Israeli police also confirmed, after DNA matching, that the group they received was indeed Israel’s most wanted.

Israel has not announced if it will keep the body for use in any future exchange deal, or if it will be buried in some other way, or if it will be returned to Hamas.

A newspaper reported New York Times The American newspaper, citing experts, said that the idea of ​​using it as part of an exchange process is “unlikely”, because “officials in Israel do not want the place where the body is buried (in Palestinian lands) to be a shrine.”

Director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, John B. Alterman, told the newspaper: “I believe he will be buried in a secret place, not was published,” noting that “when (Al-Qaeda leader). Osama) bin Laden was killed, he was given an honorable burial in the Islamic style.

American forces had thrown Bin Laden’s body into the sea, after following traditional Islamic burial procedures.

Alterman explained that Sinwar’s burial site is likely in Israel, because “the Israelis want to avoid the idea of ​​his (Sinwar) supporters saying that he was buried as a martyr in the Palestinian territories.” “

The Israeli army did not respond to a request for comment from the newspaper.

A report previously published on the website said:free“, Israeli officials confirmed that the killing of Sinwar is an “opportunity” to work on the return of the arms held in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who vowed to “exterminate” Hamas after the attack, considered Sinwar’s killing an “important milestone” in the movement’s decline, but stressed that “the war is not over yet.” “

Netanyahu said: “Today, evil has received a major blow,” stressing that “its dissolution is an important step in the downfall of the evil regime of Hamas.”

Army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy believed Israel had “settled the score” with Sinwar, who spent more than two decades held in its prisons.

On the other hand, the Palestine Liberation Organization mourned Sinwar. In a separate statement, the Fatah movement, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, also mourned Sinwar.

Sinwar (61 years old) took over the leadership of the movement after his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in an assassination in Tehran on July 31, which was blamed on Israel, which gave him an official opinion.

Several Hamas leaders have been killed since the start of the war, and Israel wanted Sinwar, such as Muhammad al-Deif, the leader of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the movement’s military wing.

The Israeli army announced on August 1 that Al-Deif was killed in an airstrike in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, on July 13, but Hamas did not confirm this.

The Israeli army accuses Sinwar of being one of the main planners of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed around 1,200 people, most of them civilians, including women and children, according to official Israeli figures .

Israel responded with intense bombing and ground military operations, killing an estimated 42,000 people, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.