FINAL MOMENTS
Astonishing vid shows Oct 7 mastermind Sinwar trying to fight off drone with STICK before being killed by Israeli troops
Watch the footage of Sinwar above
THIS is the astonishing moment Hamas leader & October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar tried to fight off a drone with a STICK before Israeli troops killed him.
Drone footage captures the terror leader's humiliating final stand as he sits slumped over in an armchair in a bombed-out building in the Gaza Strip.
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Terror kingpin Sinwar is believed to have been killed by Israeli troops after they unwittingly stumbled across him.
Israeli forces released the drone video which shows the mini-camera bot sweep into the building and come across a man with his face wrapped in a bandana.
He is sitting slumped in a dirty armchair with a badly injured hand - and appears to try and hurl a stick at the drone to fight it off.
It was a fittingly inglorious end for a terror leader who has been hunted for nearly 400 days after he oversaw the slaughter and kidnapping of more than 1,200 civilians on October 7.
READ MORE ON YAHYA SINWAR
Sinwar and his guards are understood to have been spotted by a patrol of Israeli troops in Tal al-Sultan, an area of Rafah.
They then engaged in a gunfight - and the IDF troops called in strikes from tanks and missiles.
The patrol unit then deployed a drone - and stumbled across the terrorist inside.
Troops then entered the building and killed the masked fighter as he tried to escape - only then to realise it was the 62-year-old Sinwar.
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Gruesome images shared online appeared to show Sinwar's corpse with a huge head and leg wound buried in rubble at the strike area.
The IDF confirmed it was Sinwar last night after DNA and dental tests on his remains.
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IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Thursday: "We fired on the building and went in to search.
"We found him [Sinwar] with a flak jacket and a gun and NIS 40,000.
"He was fleeing from house to house, we identified him as a terrorist, we closed in professionally and eliminated him."
Hagari said Sinwar was likely moving around in tunnels around southern Gaza for some time before he died.
The terrorist was probably trying "to escape to the north, to safer areas", when the army closed in, he explained.
After initial speculation over his death foreign minister Israel Katz said on Thursday evening: "Mass murderer Yahya Sinwar, who was responsible for the massacre and atrocities of 7 October, was killed today by IDF soldiers."
Katz dubbed Sinwar's death a "great military and moral achievement for Israel".
He also said it could mean fresh hope for hostages still being kept in Gaza and a possible "new reality" in the ravaged Strip.
"The elimination of Sinwar creates an opportunity for the immediate release of the hostages and a potential change that could lead to a new reality in Gaza - without Hamas and without Iranian control," Katz said.
Inside the twisted life of Yahya Sinwar
By Nick Parker, Foreign Editor
HIS life was saved twice by Israel – but the monster dubbed “The Hamas Bin Laden” repaid his sworn enemy by masterminding the October 7 horror.
Yahya Sinwar, 61, spent 22 years in an Israeli prison for terrorist murder and kidnap plots and spent every second honing his burning hatred for his captors.
His astonishing rise to the top of the Hamas terror tree came despite being sentenced to four life sentences in 1989 for planning the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and the murder of four Palestinians he suspected of working with Israel.
The bearded beast’s life was first saved when he was cured of cancer by an operation in a prison.
Then in 2011 he was freed, among 1,026 others, in a prisoner exchange for a single Israeli soldier in a deal that has been damned by his thousands of victims ever since.
Sinwar taught himself Hebrew and became fluent during his multiple stints as a caged man.
He began reading and studying every Israeli newspaper to probe the weak spots in his enemy’s armour.
The terror master’s deep knowledge of what makes Israelis tick led him to realise the power of the hostage-taking tactic now traumatising the strife-torn Jewish nation.
Yet despite his blood lust and bravado, the Hamas commander “cried like a baby” when he learned he had cancer, his jailer Lieutenant Betty Lahat has revealed.
Speaking about Sinwar's death, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said "evil has been delivered a blow but our task is not complete".
Netanyahu and top army officials have repeatedly vowed to take out Sinwar since October 7 last year.
The Hamas terror attack on Israeli soil killed over 1,000 people and saw some 250 more kidnapped into Gaza.
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It sparked a horrific war in which more than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes - according to the UN and other international human rights groups.
Israel recently launched a ground operation in Lebanon too, where Hamas ally Hezbollah is based, with Lebanese officials reporting the number of people killed as more than 2,300.
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