THIS is the astonishing moment Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was captured on camera by the Israeli army before they assassinated him.
The terror kingpin was killed in an airstrike on Gaza yesterday after a year-long hunt, with officials confirming his identity after DNA testing on a body recovered at the site.
ReutersFootage released by the IDF claims to show a wounded Yahya Sinwar moments before he was killed in Gaza[/caption]
ReutersThe dust-covered figure sits hunched over on a chair in a building damaged by an airstrike[/caption]
Hamas leader Sinwar was killed in the airstrike on Wednesday
Pictures show Israeli troops gathered around the body believed to be Sinwar
Gruesome images shared online beforehand appeared to show his corpse with a huge head and leg wound buried in rubble at the strike area.
Israel Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed they had identified a terrorist in the building but did not know it was him until after the hit.
Footage later released by the army – which appears to have been filmed on a drone – shows a hunched over Sinwar inside the destroyed building.
Apparently covered from head to toe in a thick layer of dust, hunched over in a chair, the 62-year-old terrorist mastermind lives out his final moments.
The video seems to show him trying to lift something and failing, with the side of the house caved in and the rooms covered in rubble.
His right arm appears to be leaning on the arm of the chair, bloodied and possibly without a hand.
IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said: “We fired on the building and went in to search.
“We found him with a flak jacket and a gun and NIS 40,000.
“He was fleeing from house to house, we identified him as a terrorist, we closed in professionally and eliminated him.”
Hagari said Sinwar was likely moving around in tunnels around southern Gaza for some time before he died.
The terrorist was likely trying “to escape to the north, to safer areas”, when the army closed in.
After initial speculation over his death foreign minister Israel Katz said on Thursday evening: “Mass murderer Yahya Sinwar, who was responsible for the massacre and atrocities of 7 October, was killed today by IDF soldiers.”
Katz dubbed Sinwar’s death a “great military and moral achievement for Israel”.
He also said it could mean fresh hope for hostages still being kept in Gaza and a possible “new reality” in the ravaged Strip.
“The elimination of Sinwar creates an opportunity for the immediate release of the hostages and a potential change that could lead to a new reality in Gaza – without Hamas and without Iranian control,” Katz said.
Inside the twisted life of Yahya Sinwar
By Nick Parker, Foreign Editor
HIS life was saved twice by Israel – but the monster dubbed “The Hamas Bin Laden” repaid his sworn enemy by masterminding the October 7 horror.
Yahya Sinwar, 61, spent 22 years in an Israeli prison for terrorist murder and kidnap plots and spent every second honing his burning hatred for his captors.
His astonishing rise to the top of the Hamas terror tree came despite being sentenced to four life sentences in 1989 for planning the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and the murder of four Palestinians he suspected of working with Israel.
The bearded beast’s life was first saved when he was cured of cancer by an operation in a prison.
Then in 2011 he was freed, among 1,026 others, in a prisoner exchange for a single Israeli soldier in a deal that has been damned by his thousands of victims ever since.
Sinwar taught himself Hebrew and became fluent during his multiple stints as a caged man.
He began reading and studying every Israeli newspaper to probe the weak spots in his enemy’s armour.
The terror master’s deep knowledge of what makes Israelis tick led him to realise the power of the hostage-taking tactic now traumatising the strife-torn Jewish nation.
Yet despite his blood lust and bravado, the Hamas commander “cried like a baby” when he learned he had cancer, his jailer Lieutenant Betty Lahat has revealed.
Speaking about Sinwar’s death, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said “evil has been delivered a blow but our task is not complete”.
Netanyahu and top army officials have repeatedly vowed to take out Sinwar since October 7 last year.
The Hamas terror attack on Israeli soil killed over 1,000 people and saw some 250 more kidnapped into Gaza.
It sparked a horrific war in which more than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes – according to the UN and other international human rights groups.
Israel recently launched a ground operation in Lebanon too, where Hamas ally Hezbollah is based, with Lebanese officials reporting the number of people killed as more than 2,300.
Sinwar was hunted by the IDF for over a year following the horrors of October 7
The IDF circled Sinwar in the footage taken moments before he died
Footage showed the bombed-out building in Rafah
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks about Sinwar’s assassination
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar holding up a child wielding a gun