Israel has now confirmed that IDF forces killed Hamas leader and mastermind behind October 7th, Yahya Sinwar in Rafah/Rafiah.
Military reporter Doron Kadosh described the sequence of events in the elimination of Yahya Sinwar:
1. Yesterday at 10:00 a.m. a soldier from Battalion 450 spotted a suspicious figure coming out and entering a building in Tel a-Sultan in Rafah. The soldier pointed out the building to the brigade commander (who himself was wounded in the battles on October 7) , and the force gradually began to move towards the target with the understanding that there were terrorists there.
2. Around 15:00, when the force activated tanks and infantry forces, 3 figures were identified with a drone moving, entering and exiting from house to house. It seems that these were terrorists who were probably among Sinwar’s companions who went one step ahead of him to “clear the ground for him”. Shots were fired at those terrorists – they were hit and began to disperse.
3. The squad Sinwar was in split up – he entered one structure and another part of the squad entered another structure. Sinwar went up to the second floor, and the tank force fired a shell into that building.
4. The platoon commander from the 450th battalion went to scan in the building where Sinwar was located – and two grenades were thrown at him and his soldiers, causing them to break contact and retreated to continue operating drones.
5. The force brought in another drone, and saw a figure (in hindsight it turns out to be Sinwar). He was wounded in the hand and masked. Sinwar was sitting in the room and tried to throw a wooden stick at the IDF drone. Then the force fired another tank shell.
6. The next time the force went in to scan was only this morning, and only when they went in and saw the bodies did they notice that there was a resemblance between one and Yahya Sinwar.
Prime Minister Netanyahu appealed to the remaining Hamas fighters to lay down their weapons and hand over the hostages. World leaders have expressed hope that Sinwar’s death will bring a faster end of the war amd a return of the hostages. In the next few days as news spreads, it will be seen how much Sinwar’s demise will in fact impact the war.