The Israel Defense Forces released a video Tuesday that it said showed Hamas leader Yehiya Sinwar and his family traveling through tunnels under Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza that is at the center of military operations.
In a briefing to journalists, the IDF said that the video, which appears to be closed-circuit television, is from Oct. 10 — just days after the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel led by Hamas and the beginning of Israel’s war in Gaza. It appears to show Sinwar, his wife and children, along with a man who the IDF said was his brother.
The video appears to be the first time Sinwar has been seen on film publicly since Oct. 7. Sinwar, who spent 22 years in Israeli prison before being released in a prisoner swap in 2011, is considered one of the masterminds of that attack.
While the video shown by the IDF was almost four months old, officials suggested that it showed that the net was closing around the Hamas leader. Speaking in Hebrew, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said that members of Sinwar’s family had been arrested and were providing intelligence to aid the IDF.
The hunt for Sinwar will continue until he is caught, “dead or alive,” Hagari said.
Hagari declined to say if Israel had more footage of the Hamas leader but said the IDF was releasing this footage to show that Sinwar was hiding underground in safe accommodations even as other Palestinians suffered under the war.
Another video released Tuesday by the IDF claimed to show a tunnel used by Sinwar and other Palestinian leaders, complete with bathrooms, a fully stocked kitchen and a safe with large amounts of money inside.
While little has been known about Sinwar’s precise location since the start of the war, Israeli officials have repeatedly suggested he is in Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city. A released hostage said that the Hamas leader had met with hostages in the underground tunnel where they were held.
Herzi Halevi, chief of the General Staff of the IDF, said Tuesday that more than 10,000 Hamas militants have been killed so far, including many commanders.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday told ABC that Israel has “brought down the civilian-to-terrorist casualties, the ratio, down below 1-1, which is considerably less than in any other theater of similar warfare,” citing what he called urban warfare experts and commentators.
In Gaza, more than 28,000 people have been killed and 68,000 injured so far in the war, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
