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Israeli forces hunted Saturday for a Hamas commander described as Palestinian Osama bin Laden, vowing to find him wherever he hid and insisting his days were numbered.
Yahya Sinwar, 60, is the current head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
He has been arrested several times by Israel and spent 24 years in Israeli prisons: he was released in 2011 as part of a prisoner swap in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Sinwar is blamed for the killing of 1,300 Israelis during the October 7 attack. The US death toll rose to 29 on Saturday, with 15 missing, believed to be held hostage in Gaza.
“Yahya Sinwar is the face of evil,” said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an IDF spokesman.
‘He is the mastermind behind this, just like bin Laden.
‘He built his career on killing Palestinians when he understood they were collaborators. Thus he became known as the butcher of Khan Younis (in southern Gaza).”
Yahya Sinwar is pictured in April 2022 speaking at a rally in Gaza City. He has been described as the mastermind behind the October 7 terrorist attack
Sinwar was compared to Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader who was killed by US Navy SEALS in May 2011
Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an IDF spokesman, said Sinwar was their bin Laden
Israel’s death toll has passed 1,000 as the country plots bloody revenge on the people of Gaza
Hecht said Israeli forces would not rest until he was found and killed.
“That man and his entire team are in our crosshairs. We will get that man,” he said, adding, “This could take a long time.”
Sinwar was designated a terrorist by the United States in 2015.
On Saturday, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh met with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Qatar.
Iran is a supporter of Hamas, but its direct involvement in the terror attack remains controversial.
It does not exercise the same operational control over Hamas as it does over Hezbollah, based in Lebanon.
Troops remove the bodies of victims killed during an attack by Hamas terrorists in Kfar Aza on Tuesday
Hamas has left a trail of destruction at a series of kibbutzim near the Gaza border, including children’s beds soaked in blood
Soldiers from the IDF Lotar unit slowly check the kibbutz of Kfar Aza, moving from one house to another to clear them of any ammunition or threat. It was here that Hamas terrorists massacred families in their homes
A house is completely destroyed after being burned by Hamas terrorists during the attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, near the Gaza border on October 11, 2023 in Be’eri, Israel
An Israeli soldier breaks down in tears at the sight of a family dining table still covered in Challah bread from Friday’s Kiddush at Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Hamas terrorists massacred families here on Saturday
Since the Hamas incursion, the bloodiest day in Israel’s 75-year history, the Israeli army says it has mobilized 360,000 reservists.
On Saturday, two US sources told CNN that a second strike group is moving to the region, after the first – led by the USS Gerald R. Ford – arrived off the coast of Israel earlier this week.
The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower strike group will join the Ford after changing its plans to deploy to the U.S. European Command and instead deploying to the Middle East, leaving its base in Norfolk, Virginia, on Friday .
The US warships are not intended to take part in the fighting in Gaza or in Israeli operations, Pentagon officials emphasize.
But the presence of two of the Navy’s most powerful ships is intended to send a message of deterrence to Iran and Iranian allies in the region, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The USS Gerald R. Ford is the world’s largest aircraft carrier. It is now located off the coast of Israel
‘Merkava’ battle tanks are gathering today at a staging area at an undisclosed location along the Gaza border
Speaking at a Human Rights Campaign dinner in Washington on Saturday, President Joe Biden linked the humanitarian crisis in Gaza to several forms of hatred that he said must be stopped.
“A week ago we saw hatred manifest itself in a different way in the worst slaughter of the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Biden said, citing the 1,300 lives lost in Israel and “children, both grandparents and kidnapped , held hostage by Hamas.”
“The humanitarian crisis in Gaza – innocent Palestinian families and the vast majority who have nothing to do with Hamas – are being used as a human shield,” he said.
“We must reject hatred in all forms.”