Khan Younis, Gaza – Since 8am, 32-year-old Abu Yusuf* has been standing in a crowd near the rubble of the former home of Yahya Sinwar, the slain Hamas political and military leader, in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis. With his four-year-old son perched on his shoulders, he has been waiting to catch a glimpse of the two Israeli captives set to be released.
Around Abu Yusuf, thousands of people have gathered amid a sea of green Hamas flags and black banners of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group. There were also portraits of Hassan Nasrallah, Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader killed by Israel, images of Abdel-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of Yemen’s Houthis, and Fathi Shaqaqi, the late founder of the Islamic Jihad.
