The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Israeli military confident Hamas leader hiding in Gaza
But killing him risks hostages he is using as shield, officials say.
The Israeli military is confident that Hamas leader Yehiya Sinwar, the alleged architect of the Oct. 7 attacks, is hiding inside a labyrinthine network of tunnels beneath southern Gaza. But he is surrounded by a human shield of hostages intended to deter an operation to capture or kill him, frustrating Israel’s efforts to dismantle the terrorist organization and bring the more than four-monthlong war to a close.
The Israeli operation in Gaza cannot conclude until Sinwar is either captured, killed or no longer in a position to run the organization, current and former Israeli officials said in interviews. Underscoring the necessity of eliminating the terrorist leader, and the degree to which the war hinges
on that mission’s success, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a meeting of his Likud party faction earlier this month, “We will kill the Hamas leadership. … We must not end the war before then.”
But pinpointing Sinwar’s location may not be as difficult, tactically or politically, as mounting a military operation to neutralize him without
also killing or injuring many of the hostages believed to be nearby, according to Israeli, U.S. and other Western intelligence and security officials who described the challenging hunt for Israel’s most-wanted man. Many of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information and operations.
“It’s not about locating him, it’s about doing something” without risking the lives of the hostages, said one senior Israeli official.
Sinwar is believed to be bunkered in the warren of tunnels beneath Khan Younis, the city in southern Gaza where he was born in 1962 into a family that had been forced out of the Palestinian town of Madjal, now Ashkelon, in the wake of Israel’s 1948 war for independence. U.S. officials said they concur with the Israeli assessment that Sinwar is hiding somewhere underneath his hometown and has surrounded himself with hostages, an ultimate insurance policy.
On Oct. 7, Hamas kidnapped more than 250 civilians and soldiers from Israel and took them into Gaza, officials have said. Hamas has released more than 100 of them. Around 130 hostages remain in captivity, an estimate that includes the bodies of about two dozen people who Israeli authorities determined have died. About half a dozen of the remaining hostages are Americans.