Video shows Yahya Sinwar’s final moments before Hamas leader’s assassination

A clip has been released showing Yahya Sinwar’s final moments before the Hamas leader was killed by Israeli troops on Wednesday.

Sinwar was confirmed dead in an untargeted attack carried out by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israel Security Agency (ISA), better known as the Shin Bet, who had been tracking the mastermind of the October 7 attacks since more than a year.

The Israeli military released drone footage of the seconds before Sinwar’s death.

A drone camera is seen moving across the second floor of a destroyed building and Sinwar is identified sitting in an armchair, wearing a keffiyeh, with a badly injured right hand.

He stares at the drone for a few seconds before throwing an object at it, which many on social media described as a stick.

Noga Tarnopolsky, an Israeli and Palestinian journalist based in Jerusalem, said the IDF sent a drone into the destroyed building, instead of soldiers, to avoid booby traps.

Unlike other Hamas leaders killed by Israel, Sinwar was not killed in a targeted strike. His body was discovered by infantry soldiers from the Bislach Brigade, a unit that often trains future unit commanders, in the Tal El Sultan region of southern Gaza.

Sinwar had fled to the ruined building where he was found during a shootout between Israeli troops and three suspected militants, Reuters reported.

Several pro-Palestinian online accounts have described what they see in the footage as a “final act of defiance”, including Irish activist Keith Woods.

IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a televised speech: “It was Yahya Sinwar who decided to wage war on Israel while hiding behind civilians in Gaza. »

Israeli officials said they believed Sinwar had been hiding in Hamas’s complex network of tunnels in Gaza for the past two decades.

But Israel’s pursuit of Sinwar forced him to “behave like a fugitive, forcing him to change locations several times,” Israeli army chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said.

Sinwar was the head of Hamas’ military wing until he was named head of the group following the July assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. Sinwar has long been seen as “calling the shots” within Hamas, Middle East experts said. News week.

Sinwar’s death marks a symbolic victory for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed to punish everyone involved in last year’s attack, which left around 1,200 people dead and 250 hostages taken in Gaza, according to the figures cited by the Associated Press from Israeli authorities.

But Hamas officials have traditionally downplayed the impact of the loss of senior leadership on an organization that has had to deal with the fact that many of its senior figures have been killed by Israel over the decades.

Talk to News week In February, Hamas Politburo member and spokesperson Basem Naim said that “it is true that leaders are an essential element in the battle and in victory over the enemy,” but “this conflict “is not between Hamas and Israel, but between the Palestinians.” and Israel, and with legitimate national objectives, and therefore assassinating one of the leaders will not stop the battle or end the conflict.

“Assassinations may temporarily affect the course of the battle,” Naim said at the time, “but there are a number of alternative leaders capable of handling the battle with equal effectiveness.”

Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have killed more than 42,400 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which says the majority of those deaths are women and children, according to the AP.