FALCON POWERS – The commander of the 98th division of the Israeli army, Dan Goldvaser, said in an interview with Channel 12 that the Israeli forces were “minutes” away from arresting Hamas leader Yahya Al-Sinwar.
Goldvaser said in the interview: “We were close. We were in his compound. We reached an underground complex. We found a lot of money there. The coffee was still hot. Weapons were scattered everywhere.”
He added: “We were really just minutes away from him.”
Israel accuses Al-Sinwar and Mohammed Al-Deif, the commander of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, of responsibility for the October 7th attack, and while it has announced the killing of the latter amid Hamas’ denial, Al-Sinwar is still at large, and Israel believes he is hiding in Gaza’s tunnels.
Last Tuesday, Hamas announced the appointment of Al-Sinwar as the new chairman of its political bureau, succeeding Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in an assassination operation that targeted the apartment where he was located in the Iranian capital Tehran.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard later revealed the circumstances of Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran and the nature of the weapon used in the operation.
Over the past months, the Israeli army has said several times that it is closing in on him, but Israel’s most wanted man, known as the “living dead man”, has escaped each time.
Last February, the army broadcast a video showing Al-Sinwar in a tunnel under Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, surrounded by “his wife and two or three” of his children.
