The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday shared a video of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar escaping through a tunnel network in the days after the group’s brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
The IDF said it obtained the video in recent days after special units uncovered a tunnel, dozens of meters underground in the Khan Yunis area of the Gaza Strip.
Special units found the video from a Hamas security camera installed in the tunnel. The video shows Sinwar fleeing with his children and one of his wives through the tunnel network, led by his brother, Ibrahim Sinwar. The IDF said the family escaped to one of Hamas’ pre-built safe complexes.
Sinwar escaping through an underground Hamas tunnel with his family in the days after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. (IDF)
The video was recorded on Oct. 10, just three days after Hamas stormed into Israel, killing 1,200 people and injuring more than 240 others.
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“While the people are suffering above ground, Sinwar is hiding in tunnels, undergound, underneath them, running like the coward that he is,” IDF Spokesperson, RDML Daniel Hagari said in a video address. “Hamas leaders care about their own families and money. They don’t care about anything else. Yahya Sinwar is only interested in his own survival at the expense of the people of Gaza.
Hagari said Hamas has been “compromised” and vowed that the terrorist group “will be dismantled.”
“Hamas leaders, wherever they’re hiding, they’re on borrowed time. We will do everything in our power to fulfill our mission,” Sinwar said, adding: “Free our hostages from Hamas and Free Gaza from Hamas.”
A view of the damaged UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) headquarters building after Israeli tanks fire in Khan Yunis, Gaza on January 26, 2024. (Jehad Alshrafi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Another video released by the IDF shows a tour of Sinwar’s underground hideout. The hideout is equipped with a kitchen, indoor plumbing, UNRWA-stamped, as well as millions of shekels and dollars inside a safe.
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The video’s release comes as Israel and Hamas are making progress toward another cease-fire and hostage-release deal as negotiations went on and Israel threatened to expand its offensive to Gaza’s southern edge, where some 1.4 million Palestinians have sought refuge.
Israeli soldiers operate in what the military described as a Hamas command tunnel running partly under UNRWA headquarters, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip, February 8, 2024. (REUTERS/Dylan Martinez)
Israel has made destroying Hamas’ governing and military capabilities and freeing the hostages the main goals of its war, which was launched after thousands of Hamas-led militants rampaged through southern Israel on Oct. 7.
The war has brought unprecedented destruction to the Gaza Strip. The Hamas-run Health Ministry has said more than 28,000 people killed, more than 70% of them women and minors. Vast swaths of the territory have been flattened by Israel’s offensive, around 80% of the population has been displaced and a humanitarian catastrophe has pushed more than a quarter of the population toward starvation.
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Israel has disputed these figures, saying it carries out operations in accordance with international law. It blames Hamas for the high death toll because the militants operate in dense residential areas.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.