Key Hamas plotters of Oct. 7 continue to elude Israel’s grip on Gaza
Netanyahu left short of tangible progress in war
ISTANBUL — Fluttering down from the skies over the Gaza Strip on a recent day were clouds of fliers dropped by the Israeli military asking for tips on the whereabouts of top Hamas leaders.
“The end of Hamas is near,” the fliers proclaimed in Arabic, promising hefty bounties to anyone who helped bring about the arrest of those who had “brought destruction and ruin to the Gaza Strip.”
The Hamas leader in Gaza, Yehya Sinwar, headed the list in exchange for a reward of $400,000 — more than 1,500 times Gaza’s average monthly wage.
Israel’s stated goal in the war is to destroy Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that rules Gaza and set off the war there by attacking Israel on Oct. 7. But despite a military campaign that has caused some 20,000 deaths in Gaza and reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble, Israel has yet to locate Sinwar and other senior Hamas figures considered key plotters of the attack 10 weeks ago.
Israel considers Sinwar central to the Oct. 7 attack, which killed roughly 1,200 people, with some 240 others taken back to Gaza as captives, Israeli officials say. Now in his 50s, he was a founding member of Hamas in the late 1980s and developed a harsh reputation for punishing Palestinians suspected of spying for Israel.
“He is a very tough guy, a brutal guy,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, an associate professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza who is now in Cairo.
Sinwar’s die-hard commitment to his organization’s Islamist ideology makes it unlikely he will go down easily.
“If he is killed, he is going to go to heaven. He doesn’t really care much about his life,” Abusada said, describing Sinwar’s mentality. “Israel would be mistaken if it thought that he was going to surrender or that Sinwar was going to raise a white flag.”
Israel is also seeking Sinwar’s brother and confidant, Mohammed. He has not been seen since the war began, although the Israeli military this week released a Hamas video captured in Gaza that it said showed him riding in a car through an underground tunnel in Gaza.
The fliers dropped over Gaza offered $300,000 for information leading to his capture.
Also named in the fliers were Rafi Salameh, a Hamas military commander, and Mohammed Deif, the leader of the Hamas armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, who is believed to have lost an eye and been seriously wounded in previous Israeli attempts to assassinate him.
Israel offered $200,000 for information about Salameh and $100,000 for Deif.
But the greatest symbolic and operational blow Israel could deal to Hamas would be to kill Yehya Sinwar, analysts and Israeli officials said. Despite the destruction of much of Hamas’s infrastructure in Gaza, Sinwar still has some control over the group’s operations and was able to deliver on swaps of captives with Israel last month that had been negotiated by Hamas leaders in exile.
Unlike most Hamas military figures, who remained in the shadows even before this war began, Sinwar often attended events and gave speeches, which raised his profile among Palestinians and Israelis. His killing would not only challenge Hamas operations but almost certainly dampen morale, while cheering Israelis.
The elusiveness of these top Hamas figures is depriving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of tangible proof to show both his domestic audience and a growing chorus of foreign leaders calling for a cease-fire that Israel is progressing toward its goal of wiping out Hamas.
In the last 10 days, about two-thirds of the United Nations General Assembly approved a nonbinding resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire; Britain, France, and Germany urged a truce; and the Biden administration dispatched senior officials to press Israel to scale back the intensity of the war in the coming weeks in favor of a tactical campaign focused on Hamas.
But Netanyahu has vowed to keep fighting, and Israeli officials have suggested a longer timeline that could see intensive bombing and ground maneuvers well into next year.
Israeli officials insist that they have made progress in degrading Hamas by killing thousands of its fighters, including important commanders, and destroying parts of a vast tunnel network the group built to secretly shuttle fighters and weapons around the territory.
The fact that the most senior Hamas leaders in Gaza have so far bedeviled Israel’s attempts to find them leaves open the possibility that they could survive the war and work to revive the group’s capabilities after the guns fall silent.