(New York Post) Yahya Sinwar, the top Hamas official in Gaza and one of the masterminds of the Oct 7 terror attacks, is believed to still be alive — hiding like a “cornered rat” in the tunnels of the Palestinian territory, despite the Israeli military naming him enemy No. 1.
While the majority of Hamas’ top officials who have been killed by the Israel Defense Forces, Sinwar has survived by staying radio-silent and using Israeli hostages and innocent Palestinians as human shields to protect him, said Colin Clarke, a counter-terrorism expert at New York-based Soufan Group.
“He’s likely still in Gaza, deep within the tunnel network and surrounded by hostages to secure his safety,” Clarke said. “Sinwar is someone who is out for his own survival.
“It’s his ultimate goal, like a cornered rat.”
The “primitive method,” as Clarke put it, allows Sinwar to avoid using cellphones, which the Israeli military is expert at tracking.
“Israel has a very high-tech network scanning for Hamas leaders, and he’s managed to avoid that,” Clarke said. “He’s clearly gone primitive.”
Retired Gen. Jack Keane, the former vice chief of staff of the United States Army who now serves as chairman of the Institute for the Study of War, said he believes Sinwar has likely scurried back to Khan Younis in the north of the Gaza Strip.
It’s believed he spent much of the war hiding in Rafah in the south until Israel launched military operations in the final Hamas stronghold city.
“Any movement is done with the utmost secrecy because it risks outing his location to the IDF,” Keane said.
Going radio-silent also means Sinwar is likely not actively commanding Hamas’ remaining units in Rafah, as holding real-time military meetings would leave him exposed like the more than a dozen battalion leaders who have been killed by the Israeli military since Oct. 7.
The Israeli military had flagged Sinwar’s radio silence back in February after the IDF advanced into Khan Younis and raided the Hamas leader’s home.
Clarke surmised that Sinwar is simply hoping to ride out the war inside Gaza’s tunnel system despite the mounting deaths of his troops and Palestinians caught in the middle of the conflict.
In May, Israel said 14,000 Hamas terrorists had been killed, along with 16,000 civilians.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claimed that 37,500 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war. The group does not differentiate between terrorists and civilians.
Sinwar, himself, seemed to suggest he didn’t care about the death toll in leaked communications revealed by the Wall Street Journal, where the Gaza chief touted civilian deaths as “necessary sacrifices” to keep the war raging.
“As long as he and Hamas survives this, he’s won,” Clarke said.
“And the more deaths the better for him since he can use it to garner backlash against Israel.”
