Where is Yahya Sinwar? According to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, no one knows yet. Sinwar is the leader of Hamas’s political wing in Gaza and, according to Israel, the mastermind behind the attack that Hamas carried out on October 7, which led to 1,200 deaths and 200 hostage takings.
Last week, Israel released images from a seized surveillance camera allegedly showing Sinwar hiding with his family in a tunnel under the southern city of Khan Younis. In the meantime, according to Gallant, he is untraceable even for Hamas.
Without a leader
The temporarily missing Yahya Sinwar. — © AFP
“Hamas does not trust its leaders: the Gaza branch does not respond,” he says. “That means there is now an auction to decide who runs Gaza. There is no one in command, and there is no one directing operations.”
According to Gallant, “two hundred terror suspects” have surrendered in recent days during the raids in Khan Younis, which he believes indicates that the balance of power there is also clear for Hamas. He says there are still six Hamas battalions on the army’s radar, four of them in Rafah.
Biden’s resistance
Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, has become a refuge for 1.5 million Palestinians in recent months. Israeli plans to enter Rafah met with fierce resistance last week from, among others, Joe Biden, who, as president of the United States, is nevertheless an important ally of Israel. “They have fled violence in the north and are now huddled, exposed and vulnerable in Rafah,” he said. He urged a plan to spare civilians.
Rafah is the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli government member Benny Gantz has now reiterated that there are plans to invade Rafah. He gives Hamas until the start of Ramadan, on March 10, to release all hostages. “The world and Hamas leaders must know that fighting will continue everywhere, including in Rafah, if our hostages are not freed by Ramadan,” he said. “Hamas has a choice. They can surrender and release the hostages. The citizens of Gaza will then be able to celebrate Ramadan.”
“Hamas has a choice. They can surrender and release the hostages. The citizens of Gaza will then be able to celebrate Ramadan”
Benny Gantz
Israeli government member
Evacuation via Egypt
He is talking about an attack “in a coordinated manner, in which we facilitate the evacuation of civilians in dialogue with our American and Egyptian partners to keep the number of civilian deaths as small as possible.” With the explicit reference to Egypt, he seems to be hinting at an evacuation via the border crossing with that country.
Hamas has now admitted the loss of 6,000 troops, although Israel says it has already lost 12,000. Since the start of the Israeli operation, a total of 29,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children. The figures from the Hamas-led Health Ministry are unverifiable, but have generally been reliable in the past.
There have also been 69,000 injured people, who often cannot be helped because 35 hospitals in Gaza are unusable or only partially usable. “The shortage of painkillers has left patients screaming for hours and hours,” one doctor told the BBC. Meanwhile, United Nations experts also denounce frequent human rights violations and sexual violence against Palestinian women and girls.