“Time TV”
 — 

It was round 5:30 within the morning on Thursday in Washington, DC, when senior US officers first acquired phrase — and pictures — from their Israeli counterparts: Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar could be useless.

For greater than a 12 months since Hamas attacked Israel final October 7, Israeli forces — with some quiet assist from the US — had been looking the mastermind behind that day.

Greater than as soon as, they’d been shut, pushing the Hamas chief from one underground hiding place to the subsequent. However Sinwar had moved like a ghost within the countless warren of tunnels dug beneath the streets of Gaza, not often coming above floor and speaking solely by courier to keep away from detection by digital surveillance.

Ultimately, it was solely by pure accident {that a} group of Israeli troopers stumbled on Israel’s most wished man.

Infantry troopers from the IDF’s Bislach Brigade, a unit that usually trains future commanders, had been monitoring a number of males among the many ruins in southern Gaza, pulverized by Israel’s punishing bombing marketing campaign. Gunfire broke out. The Israelis fired again from a tank and despatched a drone swooping into one of many hollowed-out buildings.

It was solely after the trade of fireside had ended and troops returned the next morning to examine the rubble that they realized one of many our bodies was Sinwar.

His dying marks the top of a yearlong manhunt that had consumed Israeli and US intelligence providers — and dominated discussions about what it might take to finish the battle. The CIA had arrange a selected activity drive to trace Sinwar; and after October 7, the US broadly surged intelligence belongings to the area to collect info on Hamas and its chief.

But, a number of US officers instructed “Time TV”, the second of his dying got here as a complete shock.

Israeli and US officers usually had some sense of the overall space the place Sinwar was hiding over the lengthy months. However the elusive Hamas chief moved always and made pinpointing his location extraordinarily troublesome.

He eschewed cell telephones and different digital communications completely, as a substitute sending written notes to convey his instructions each to army commanders inside Gaza and to Hamas officers in Doha who have been performing as his representatives in negotiations over a potential ceasefire. Interlocutors would typically have to attend days or perhaps weeks for suggestions from Sinwar to offer couriers time to relay written messages backwards and forwards.

Sinwar had not appeared publicly since October 7. His solely identified direct communication with the skin world was by a number of letters, most just lately final month when he wrote to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. The Lebanese militant group mentioned he had written to Nasrallah reaffirming his dedication to preventing Israel and supporting the Iran-backed alliance of regional militants often known as the “Axis of Resistance.”

For therefore lengthy, Sinwar had been identified to be meticulously cautious, even paranoid, about his private safety. It’s unclear what drew him above floor on Wednesday — a fateful choice that made him susceptible.

“These guys come out of hiding and might by no means keep comfy,” one US official mentioned.

Time and again, it appeared that the IDF was at all times only a step behind Sinwar.

On at the least three separate events in 2024, Israeli Protection Forces have been capable of push into tunnels the place Sinwar had solely simply been.

In January, based on a high IDF commander, DNA proof helped Israel affirm that he had been hiding in a tunnel beneath Khan Younis in early October 2023. “Time TV” was unable to independently affirm that evaluation.

Worldwide media have been blocked from accessing Gaza independently for the reason that battle began. The one manner in is with an Israeli army escort, which implies reporters are solely allowed to see what Israel needs them to see.

In February, CCTV digital camera footage purportedly confirmed Sinwar inside a tunnel in the identical space simply days after the October 7 assault, transferring by a dim tunnel along with his spouse, kids and his brother Ibrahim Sinwar.

Because the IDF started closing in on Khan Younis, the town of his beginning, Sinwar appeared to have moved south. The IDF mentioned this week that they discovered his DNA in a tunnel in Rafah, a number of hundred meters from the place six hostages have been killed in August.

He was killed on Wednesday not removed from that tunnel, in part of Rafah known as Tal Al Sultan that had been squared off by the Israeli army after intensified assaults by two Hamas battalions all summer time.

US intelligence assortment was efficient sufficient that officers had some home windows into Sinwar’s mindset over the lengthy months.

At one level over the summer time, the CIA has assessed that Sinwar, dealing with blame for the enormity of the struggling in Gaza, was underneath strain from his personal army commanders to just accept a ceasefire deal and finish the battle with Israel.

As Israel hunted for Hamas operatives hiding within the huge community of underground tunnels, the IDF at occasions despatched in canines, ferrets and robots slightly than troopers.

Typically, when a canine wouldn’t return again above floor, the IDF puzzled whether or not it was due to an absence of oxygen in some components of the tunnel that have been a number of tales beneath floor stage. At different occasions, the robots would get shot at – confirming that there was, in truth, Hamas presence.

However he remained frustratingly past attain.

It appears clear that the IDF didn’t know he was close to Tal Al Sultan till after he was killed; In mid-September, the IDF took “Time TV” and different media to the realm. At the moment, the IDF gave no indication that Sinwar might be there — and it’s unlikely it might have taken reporters to a location the place it believed him to be hiding.

DNA and dental information

On Thursday morning, high Israeli and American officers stayed in shut contact because the IDF labored to substantiate with certainty that the physique discovered within the rubble in northern Rafah was, in truth, Sinwar.

However even earlier than that official affirmation would come some hours later, photos of Sinwar’s physique had senior US officers feeling assured that the mastermind of the October 7 assaults had lastly been killed.

By noon in Washington, Israel had used DNA and dental information to substantiate the identification of the physique, holdings in Israel’s possession due to Sinwar’s time in an Israeli jail.

In his closing combat, Sinwar, together with two different males, threw grenades and fired weapons on the surrounding Israeli troopers, who responded with their very own gunfire. Sinwar, armed with a vest and a gun and $10,000 in Israeli shekels, fled alone to a different constructing.

Within the moments earlier than his dying — which Israeli officers have mentioned was brought on by a bullet to the top — Israeli troops flew a drone into the closely broken constructing the place he had fled. A video from the drone, launched by the Israeli army, presents a silent account of his closing moments. It hovers in an upstairs room, the place a masked determine sits alone in a chair, surrounded by mud and rubble. The determine holds a bit of wooden in his hand, and, a split-second earlier than the video ends, hurls it on the drone.

Already, Iran has praised Sinwar as a martyr who died preventing, face-to-face along with his enemy.

Over the previous a number of months, American officers got here to imagine Sinwar had grown more and more hardened — each in his willpower to proceed preventing Israel in Gaza but additionally in his personal fatalistic outlook.

Sinwar didn’t anticipate he would survive the battle, one US official mentioned. As a result of he believed he would ultimately be killed, he had little motivation to conform to a ceasefire, US officers assessed — leaving talks in a perpetual impasse.

As an alternative of in search of peace in Gaza, American officers suspected Sinwar wished the battle to proceed with out an endpoint, bogging down Israel and damaging its worldwide repute.

To the top, US intelligence officers believed that Sinwar was unconcerned along with his personal mortality, and decided to proceed the combat.