UN bags and millions of shekels: inside slain Hamas leader Sinwar’s bunker in Gaza | Video

Yahya Sinwar was prepared to hide from the war in Gaza with UN food rations, thousands of cash and other basic amenities, Israeli officials said, as video from the leader’s bunker of the assassinated Hamas resurfaced on social networks a few days after his assassination.

The video footage provides a glimpse of how the perpetrator of the October 7 attack spent his days in Khan Younis before being forced to flee to Rafah, where he was killed last week. The video, first released in February, shows the living quarters of Sinwar and his guards, complete with a well-equipped kitchen that helped members of the Palestinian group weather the war that decimated Gaza above ground.

“The IDF released images showing their entry into the Sinwar bunker, where UNWRA bags and millions of shekels were found. Sinwar and other Hamas leaders have siphoned billions of dollars from the people of Gaza, allegedly with the participation of @UNWRA,” David Saranga, ambassador and director of Israel’s Digital Diplomacy Office, said in a statement. article on X.

In a video making the rounds on Besides the food cache, the Israeli military also found bathrooms and showers in the bunker that were significantly cleaner and more modern than other baths found in the Hamas tunnel system.

Murder of Sinwar

Israeli army chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said Israel’s pursuit of Sinwar over the past year had caused him “to act like a fugitive, forcing him to change location to several times.” After a manhunt that lasted more than a year, Israeli troops who killed Sinwar were initially unaware they had caught their country’s number one enemy after a shootout Wednesday.

Dental records, fingerprints and DNA testing provided definitive confirmation of Sinwar’s death for Israel and Friday. Intelligence gradually restricted the area in which Sinwar could operate, the military said. However, unlike other militant leaders hounded by Israel, the clash that ultimately killed Sinwar was not a planned, targeted strike, nor an operation carried out by elite commandos.

When troops reached him, his body was found with a gun, a bulletproof vest and $10,731 along with various documents suggesting he had been forced to change location as the Israeli search closed in on him . He had money on him, papers and he was traveling. In the last months of his life, the main architect of October 7, 2023 appears to have stopped using the phones and other communications equipment that would have allowed Israel’s powerful intelligence services to find him.

Israeli officials believe he was hiding in one of the vast networks of tunnels dug by Hamas under Gaza over the past two decades. Dozens of operations by the army and intelligence services gradually restricted his movements to the area near the southern city of Rafah, where he was finally arrested, the military said. Israeli troops nearly caught him in Khan Younis, forcing him to leave the network of tunnels where Israeli officials believe he had been sheltering for months.

(With contributions from the agency)