NBC Investigates Enigma Of ‘Where Is Sinwar?’

NEW YORK (VINnews) — An extensive NBC News report published on Wednesday seeks to answer the intriguing question of “Where is Sinwar?” The terrorist leader who is believed to be the architect of the October 7 massacre has succeeded in staying one step ahead of the IDF and Israeli intelligence agencies, the network said.

The report quotes current and former senior IDF officers and security officials who said that Yahya Sinwar was likely moving from place to place underground. NBC said he was likely hiding somewhere in the vast tunnel system Hamas built beneath Gaza.

Currently the IDF has surrounded his hometown of Khan Younis and is systematically uncovering and destroying the tunnels located under houses, schools and hospitals. In the process it has also killed hundreds of terrorists from the local Hamas battalion. Yet so far the elusive Hamas leaders, including military mastermind Mohammed Deif and his deputy Marwan Issa, have evaded all attempts at location. Israeli sources said they could not rule out the possibility that Sinwar and other senior Hamas officials had escaped Gaza, perhaps to Egypt, using yet another tunnel under the border.

The officials told NBC that Sinwar and others in the leadership of the terror group most probably hid in a tunnel that was recently found containing caged cells to hold the hostages.

“It is a fair assumption that Sinwar and Hamas leadership were close to where those hostages were kept — and then they all moved on,” former IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus told NBC. “I think being close to hostages has saved his life more than once.” Conricus is today a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based policy institute.

According to the report, Sinwar goes to great lengths to keep communications with Hamas political leaders in Qatar secret from Israeli intelligence. Israeli military officials said the idea floated by the government, to allow Sinwar to safely leave Gaza in exchange for the release of the Israeli hostages being held there, was ill advised.

“If he lives abroad and supervises the remaining leaders of Hamas in Gaza and Hamas gets a role in a future arrangement in Gaza, well that amplifies his victory on Oct 7,” one official told the network.

Former Deputy National Security Advisor Jacob Nagel told NBC that he believed Sinwar would never release all of the hostages. “He’ll keep some of the hostages forever because this will be his insurance policy that no one will kill him.”

Other officials said that Sinwar has three goals. One is to survive, the other is to ensure the survival of Hamas and the third is to ensure that Hamas plays a role in the governing of Gaza after the war.

Gershon Baskin, who was involved in negotiations to free IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, held for five years in Hamas captivity, disagreed. He told NBC that there would be a “fight to the death”.

“I believe Sinwar knows he will die a martyr,” he added. “This is Hamas’s distorted version of Islam. Life on earth is short, and paradise is eternal.”