Motivated pursuers using advanced technology and brute force have yet to pin down their cautious quarry. Would his death or capture stop the war?
group of Israeli hostages were huddled in a tunnel in Gaza a few days after they had been dragged from their homes on 7 October, when the man who had plotted their abduction appeared out of the subterranean gloom.
The nearly year-long hunt for Sinwar has involved a mix of advanced technology and brute force, as his pursuers have shown themselves prepared to go to any lengths, including causing extremely high civilian casualties, to kill the Hamas leader and destroy the tight circle around him. The IDF estimates there are 500km of tunnels under Gaza, an entire underground city. A second important challenge, according to at least some in the defence establishment, is that Sinwar is likely to have surrounded himself with human shields.
Yahalom, a special section within the Combat Engineering Corps, has more experience in tunnel warfare than any of its counterparts in western armies, and has access to state-of-the-art US-made ground-penetrating radar. The clandestine signals intelligence unit 8200 is a global leader in electronic warfare and has been eavesdropping on Hamas communications for decades.
“He really understands the basic instincts and the deepest feelings of Israeli society,” said Milshtein, now at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University. “I’m quite sure every move he makes is based on his understanding of Israel.”Sinwar still communicates with the outside world, albeit with apparent difficulty. The long negotiations over a ceasefire in Cairo and Doha have often been paused while messages are sent to and from the subterranean commander.
By July this year, the likelihood of killing large numbers of civilians was no longer an obstacle. In, the air force used 2,000lb bombs, the very weapons the Biden administration had stopped sending in May because of their indiscriminate destructive force. Israel reportedly dropped eight of them on 13 July. Ninety Palestinians in the vicinity were killed and nearly 300 injured.
It is possible that a deal will be made in which Sinwar goes into exile, and some suggest he may already be across the border, hiding in a tunnel on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border. That would cut against the conventional wisdom about the ideological zeal of a man who rose through Hamas ranks as the executioner of suspected informers.
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