ISRAEL is claiming to have Hamas’ leader surrounded in a bunker after taking control of one of the terror group’s military strongholds today.
IDF forces have dubbed Yahya Sinwar, known as “Gaza’s Bin Laden”, a dead man, as they close in around Gaza City.
Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas’s leader in Gaza was “hiding in his bunker … without contact with his associates”.
He did not disclose the terror leader’s exact location.
IDF forces are rapidly closing in on Gaza as fighter jets today struck a terror cell in the enclave’s north before sending in soldiers on foot.
It claimed a number of anti-tank missiles, launchers, other weapons and “various intelligence materials” were uncovered inside.
At least ten Hamas militants were also killed in the blast.
The IDF also said an aircraft also struck several Hamas militants who had barricaded themselves in a building near the al-Quds Hospital.
Gallant claimed Israeli troops are storming the terror group’s strongholds “from all directions, in perfect co-ordination with maritime and aerial forces.”
Footage shows gun-wielding Israeli troops moving into the “terror nest” and searching buildings.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Sinwar, 61, as acting like a “little Hitler in a bunker,” as he was suspected of hiding in a Hamas control centre beneath a Gaza Strip hospital.
And Israel Defence Forces spokesman Lt Col Richard Hecht compared him to al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden for his role in the Hamas atrocities.
Lt Col Hecht said: “Yahya Sinwar is the face of evil. He is the mastermind behind this, like Bin Laden was [with the 9/11 US attacks].”
The Israelis previously urged Hamas fighters in Gaza to kill or hand over the bogeyman themselves as this would “hasten the end to the war”.
The IDF said on Tuesday: “Over the past day, IDF troops secured a military stronghold belonging to the Hamas terrorist organisation in the northern Gaza Strip.
“In coordination with soldiers on the ground, an IDF fighter jet struck a cell of approximately 10 terrorists.
“Following this, IDF ground troops identified an anti-tank missile cell operating in their vicinity.
“The troops directed an IDF aircraft that struck the terrorist cell.”
It comes as pictures show Israeli forces using bulldozers to clear our mines and explosives and also demolish buildings as they push through the Hamas “terror nest”.
Their arsenal includes the D9R armoured bulldozer – nicknamed Doobi or “Teddy Bear” – that can deflect rockets and tackle a labyrinth of tunnels and sniper positions.
With 15 tonnes of added armour and a reinforced blade, the beast is almost impenetrable to guns or explosives.
The founder of Hamas’s military wing and its intelligence service, Sinwar has been the leader of the terror group in Gaza since 2017.
As the IDF launched its hunt for him following last month’s killings by Hamas in Israel, it released an earlier video of him telling supporters: “From us here in Gaza they will never get anything but guns and fire. They will never get anything but death and killing.”
Born in a refugee camp, Sinwar was captured and sentenced to 426 years in prison in 1989 for the murder of two Israeli soldiers.
He was the most high-profile of more than 1,000 terror prisoners released in a 2011 swap deal to secure the release of one kidnapped Israeli soldier.
Israel has vowed to remove Hamas from power and crush its military capabilities amid its bloody ongoing battle with the terror group.
Hamas-led health officials meanwhile said at least 23 Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli air strikes on Tuesday morning in the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah.
The death toll this week surpassed 10,000 in Gaza, the health ministry said – with more than 2,300 missing and feared to be buried under rubble.
About 1,400 people in Israel have died, mostly civilians killed in the October 7 incursion by Hamas that triggered the war.
It comes as IDF soldiers encircle Gaza City a month on from the horror October 7 massacre after claiming to have split the enclave “in two”.
