Israeli forces nearly captured Hamas chief Sinwar twice during ongoing Gaza war

Israeli forces were close to capturing their top target in Gaza, Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, on two occasions in recent days, according to Israel's Channel 13 news.

IDF troops reportedly entered specific Gaza terror tunnels where the Israeli military assessed the Hamas chief had been hiding shortly before Israeli forces arrived. The report also revealed that IDF soldiers had discovered a former hiding place of Mohammed Deif, the commander of Hamas’ military wing.

Sinwar and other top Hamas leaders are believed to be hiding in the complex tunnel system below the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Last month, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Euro News that Khan Yunis is the nerve center of the Hamas terror regime in the Gaza Strip.

“Khan Younis, which is in the southern part of Gaza Strip, is the real headquarters of Hamas,” the former premier said.

“They have the leadership, they are hiding, they have the bunkers, they have the command positions, they have the launching pads,” Olmert added.

Sinwar, who is considered a radical even by Hamas standards, is widely believed to be one of the masterminds of the Oct. 7 brutal massacre of more than 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians in southern Israeli communities close to the Gaza Strip border. In addition, Hamas and other terrorists kidnapped around 240 Israelis and foreign nationals.

In 1989, Israel sentenced Sinwar to four life sentences after he masterminded the capture and murder of two IDF soldiers and four Palestinians. However, in 2011, Sinwar was released from jail as part of a deal when Israel secured the release of the IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for the release of more than 1,000 security prisoners and terrorists. In 2017, Sinwar replaced Ismail Haniyeh as the terror organization’s Gaza chief. Haniyeh, who serves as the Hamas political bureau chief, currently resides in the Qatari capital of Doha.

Israel has vowed to capture Sinwar dead or alive and recently offered a $400,000 reward to anyone who can disclose Sinwar’s hiding place.

Earlier this month, Israeli special forces encircled Sinwar’s deserted home in his native town of Khan Younis. Due to the extensive presence of Israeli forces in the area, Israeli intelligence believes that top Hamas leaders are constantly moving between different locations in the vast subterranean tunnel network informally known as the “Gaza Metro.”

Sinwar and other top Hamas leaders are believed to have fled south with hundreds of thousands of civilian Gazans when Israeli forces entered the northern half of the coastal enclave at the end of October. However, the fighting is increasingly moving south, as most Hamas terrorists in northern Gaza were either eliminated, capitulated or fled to the south. Khan Younis and Rafah, near the Egyptian border, are considered the strongest remaining Hamas strongholds in southern Gaza.

The Israeli military recently assessed that it could take months to dismantle Hamas’s military and political assets in southern Gaza. Most of Hamas’s remaining forces are believed to be concentrated in southern Gaza. In addition, most Gazan civilians are also concentrated in the south after more than a million Gazans fled from the war zones in the north following the beginning of the Israeli military ground operation. The presence of so many civilians is making the battle conditions even more challenging for Israeli troops who try to avoid harming civilians. While Israeli forces are gradually advancing, there are still many battles in southern Gaza, especially in and around Khan Younis.

IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Daniel Hagari announced on Tuesday that the army had decided to deploy an additional brigade to the Hamas stronghold Khan Younis.

“In southern Gaza, in the Khan Younis area, we are expanding our operations, and deepening them. We added a full brigade and additional combat engineering forces for operations in the area, to improve our operations,” Hagari said.