Israel has vowed to find and kill Hamas commander Yahya Sinwar, who is believed to be responsible for the October 7 attacks on Southern Israel which left over 1,400 dead.
SInwar, 61, is suspected to be based in a Hamas command and control centre under a hospital in the Gaza Strip, something the hospital denies.
As the Head of Hamas in Gaza, Sinwar is the second most powerful member of the enclave’s de facto governing authority after Ismail Haniyeh.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday described the commander as a ‘little Hitler in his bunker’ with ‘no care for his people’.
Lt Col Richard Hecht, the spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, made comparisons between Sinwar and Osama Bin Laden.
‘Yahya Sinwar is the face of evil. He is the mastermind behind this, like Bin Laden was [with 9/11]’, he said.
Yahya Sinwar presides over Hamas’ affairs in Gaza, having set up its intelligence services and military wing, the IQB.
The IDF announced it would search for Sinwar among other top Hamas officials last month.
Sinwar was sentenced to 426 years in jail over the killings of two Israeli soldiers in 1989.
He was later released as part of a prisoner swap with Hamas in 2011.
Sinwar and others released in the swap are among those Israel alleges were involved in the October 7 attack.
Israel has since claimed Hamas has a headquarters based under the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza.
On Friday, Hamas claimed scores of Palestinians were killed and injured after an Israeli missile strike hit an ambulance convoy near the hospital.
More than 9,700 Palestinians – with more than 4,000 of them children and minors have been killed since the conflict broke out on October 7, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.
In the occupied West Bank, more than 140 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids.
Over 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, most of them in the October 7 Hamas attack that started the fighting, and 242 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by the militant group.
