FOOTAGE appearing to show Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar slinking away through a maze of terror tunnels has been released by the Israeli military.
In the video the brute appears to be leading his family through an underground passage beneath Gaza as Israel vows to hunt him down “dead or alive.”
GettyIf the footage is confirmed to be the Hamas brute it will be the first sighting of him since the October 7 attacks[/caption]
Israel Defence Forces A video that appears to show Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar hiding in tunnels beneath Gaza has been revealed[/caption]
They have accused him of being the “mastermind” behind the barbaric terror attack on October 7 where Hamas troops stormed into Israel and opened fire on festival goers.
The minute long clip features Sinwar in a tunnel underneath the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis – a known terrorist stronghold.
He walks behind what appears to be his wife along with three of his children, who are led by Sinwar’s brother Ibrahim, according to Israel Defence forces (IDF).
Sinwar appears healthy and in one piece as he carries a bag and wears Adidas flipflops while using a torch to navigate.
One of his daughters is seen holding a doll.
The IDF claim the man in the footage is Sinwar but provided not additional evidence to support their claims.
If the video – aired by the IDF yesterday – is verified it will be the first time the Hamas chief has been seen since he went into hiding ahead of the slaughter.
An IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said the video had been captured on a Hamas CCTV camera on October 10 and obtained in recent days.
“That’s how he escaped with his family underground in a tunnel to one of the safe accommodation complexes he had built in advance,” he added.
An Israeli official told Channel 12 that the authorities are in possession of additional footage of Siwnar, including clips that were filmed more recently.
Hagari told the Al Arabiya network ahead of the airing of the footage: “Every resident of Gaza [can now] see how Hamas leaders live underground and how they don’t think about anything other than themselves, their families and their money.”
In a press conference upon releasing the footage he said: “One video or another is not what really matters.
“What is important is the intelligence that will allow us to reach senior Hamas officials and the hostages.
“The hunt for Sinwar will not stop until we catch him, dead or alive,”
He also said that earlier this month, troops detained close relatives of senior Hamas military commanders, including Sinwar.
Sinwar has been described as Israel’s most-wanted man in Gaza and the Israeli military has declared him a “dead man walking.”
In December, the IDF surrounded the Hamas chief’s house but didn’t find him and it is believed he had already fled underground.
Sinwar spent 22 years in an Israeli prison for terrorism, murder and kidnap plots and spent every second honing his burning hatred for his captors as he masterminded the October 7 massacre.
But Israel’s military chiefs vowed that their renewed offensive must not end until he is dead as details of his twisted psyche were laid bare.
His astonishing rise to the top of the Hamas terror tree came despite being sentenced to four life sentences in 1989 for planning the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and the murder of four Palestinians he suspected of working with Israel.
Thousands of civilians fled in panic from Khan Younis on December 4, as tanks roared into the city.
It was believed terror commanders “Hamas Bin Laden” and Yahya Sinwar were hiding there.
In what some called the final showdown with Hamas, an onslaught supported by Israeli warplanes and artillery kicked off.
Hamas Qassam Brigades announced soon after the attack began that it had fought against five tanks and five personnel carriers with Al-Yassin 105 missiles.
A number of Israeli casualties and a string of civilian deaths were recorded as the Jewish state’s Operation Swords of Iron entered its most critical phase.
Armoured bulldozers were also seen smashing their way through defensive barriers as the war in the south gathered pace.
It comes as yesterday dramatic drone footage showed the moment two Israeli hostages were rescued during an overnight blitz in nearby city Rafah.
Israeli troops swept into the city under the cover of night to extract the men and high-tech cameras caught the moment they were freed from their Hamas captors.
When Israeli forces were able to break them out following a hail of gunfire and strikes between the IDF and Hamas – they sent a coded message to their fellow troops.
“The diamonds are in our hands”, one soldier said over the radio as drone footage showed them running down the blitzed streets in Rafah.
A shell-shocked Fernando Simon Marman, 60, and Louis Hare, 70, were bundled onto a helicopter and flown straight to a hospital in Israel after the daring rescue.
AFPIsrael have vowed to capture Sinwar ‘dead or alive’[/caption]
‘Who is ‘Gaza’s Bin Laden’?’
Yahya Sinwar, dubbed ‘Gaza’s Bin Laden’, is a politician who is the leader of Palestinian extremist group Hamas.
Israel blame him for “masterminding” the October 7 massacre where Hamas brutes stormed across the border and opened fire at a music festival in Israel.
Sinwar is 61 years old and was born in 1962 at the Khan Yunis refugee camp and spent his early years there.
The Hamas chief previously served 22 years behind bars for for orchestrating the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians.
He was released in 2011.
In 2017 he was secretly elected Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, taking over from Ismail Haniyeh.
Shortly after, he established a Hamas controlled administrative committee for the Gaza Strip, which meant that he opposed any power sharing with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.
In 2021, he was elected to a second four-year term as the head of Hamas Gaza branch
Sinwar is the highest-ranking Hamas official in Gaza and is the second most powerful member of Hamas.
