The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released new footage on Monday from the operation that led to the killing of Hamas Chief Yahya Sinwar, showing the head camera of a soldier who entered the building in which he tried to hide before dying.
The images show the soldier walking through rubble after a tank shelled the building where a Hamas operative (later found out to be Sinwar) escaped to after randomly encountering IDF forces. He then fires some shots and shouts after seemingly spotting suspicious movement.
The footage also includes communications between commanders, with one confirming that an operative had been killed.
"We eliminated him, we identified him with a blanket on him. He's currently eliminated, over," an officer says. They found out then that the person in question was Sinwar, who had managed to evade Israeli forces for over a year.
The IDF releases new footage from the headcam of a soldier of the Bislamach Brigade, during the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar earlier this month in southern Gaza's Rafah.
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) October 28, 2024
The troops had engaged and killed four gunmen in Rafaj's Tel Sultan neighborhood, one of whom was… pic.twitter.com/Zp0GW3tAb2
The IDF has published different moments of the operation that killed Sinwar, also showing the tank that shelled the building in question, located in Tel al-Sultan, Rafah.
The most revealing one features images of a mini-drone surveilling the area after the tank shelling and spotting the person later revealed as the Hamas chief. The masked man is seen on a couch with his right hand seemingly blown off.
יושב רעול פנים ומשליך מקל על רחפן צה"לי | תיעוד רגעיו האחרונים של יחיא סינוואר@ItayBlumental pic.twitter.com/kMdoPBm8hP
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) October 17, 2024
Hamas has said that Sinwar's demise will only strengthen the militant group and "will be a curse on the occupiers." "Hamas will remain until a Palestinian state is established on all historic Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital," said Khalil Al-Hayya after the killing.
The statement also said that the Israeli hostages it holds in Gaza "will not be returned without a Israeli withdrawal from the Strip and the release of Palestinian prisoners from the occupation's prisons."
The war has not taken significant toward a ceasefire since the killing of Sinwar, with clashes continuing in the Gaza Strip, especially in the north. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi proposed over the weekend a two-day truce and limited hostage exchange aimed at securing a "complete ceasefire."
The proposal made on Sunday includes exchanging four Israeli hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, and would be followed by more negotiations within 10 days, Sisi said at a news conference in Cairo. He did not say whether the plan had been formally presented to either Israel or Hamas.
