According to Israeli footage, Yahya Sinwar threw a stick at the drone just before he died

Israeli authorities released video Thursday showing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar slumped on a dust-covered chair while being tracked by an Israeli small drone as he lay dying in the wreckage of a building in southern Gaza.

In what appeared to be a desperate attempt, he was seen on camera hurling a stick at the drone as it hovered close by.

The Israeli troops that killed Sinwar were first unaware that they had captured their nation’s top enemy following a gunfight on Wednesday, according to Israeli officials, following a rigorous manhunt that lasted more than a year.

Following conclusive confirmation of Sinwar’s death through DNA tests, fingerprints, and dental records, the military stated on Thursday that intelligence services had been progressively limiting the region in which he could operate.

However, the operation that ultimately killed Sinwar was not a planned and targeted strike or one executed by expert commandos, in contrast to other militant commanders whom Israel had tracked down and murdered, such as Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, who was killed in an Israeli bombing on July 13.

Rather, he was discovered by infantrymen from the Bislach Brigade, which typically prepares future unit commanders, according to officials. On Wednesday, the troops were looking for what they believed to be key Hamas militants in the Tal El Sultan neighborhood in southern Gaza.

Sinwar fled into a destroyed structure during the battle that broke out after the troops opened fire after spotting three suspected terrorists moving between buildings.

Israeli media reported that a missile and tank ammunition were also fired at the structure.

The military released video from a small drone on Thursday, claiming it showed Sinwar seated on a chair with his face wrapped in a scarf and with a serious gash to his hand. He is seen in the movie trying in vain to bring down the drone by throwing a stick at it.

According to Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, forces entered and discovered Sinwar carrying a weapon, a flak jacket, and 40,000 shekels ($10,731.63), even though he was just identified as a fighter at this point.

“He tried to escape and our forces eliminated him,” he said during a briefing that was shown on television.

Although Hamas has not spoken, insiders within the organization claim that the evidence they have seen points to the fact that Israeli forces killed Sinwar.

“The dozens of operations carried out by the IDF and the ISA over the last year, and in recent weeks in the area where he was eliminated, restricted Yahya Sinwar’s operational movement as he was pursued by the forces and led to his elimination,” according to an Israeli military statement.

The primary planner of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza War, Sinwar, seems to have stopped using phones and other communication devices in the final months of his life, which would have made it more difficult for Israel’s potent intelligence services to find him.

According to Israeli authorities, they thought he was hiding in one of the many tunnel networks that Hamas had excavated beneath Gaza over the previous 20 years, but as more and more have been discovered by Israeli forces, even the tunnels were no assurance that he would not be apprehended.

According to Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, the chief of Israel’s military, Sinwar was forced “to act like a fugitive, causing him to change locations multiple times” during the course of Israel’s one-year pursuit of him.

Long worried that Sinwar had surrounded himself with some of the 101 Israeli and international prisoners remained in Gaza as a human shield to defend himself from Israeli attacks, Israeli officials knew Sinwar as a vicious and devoted opponent.

Hagari claimed that samples of his DNA were discovered in a tunnel a few hundred meters from the location where six Israeli hostages were killed by Hamas at the end of August, but no hostages were discovered in the area when he was eventually captured on Wednesday.

(3.7273 shekels) = $1