Several reports on Monday stated that Hamas Chief Yahya Sinwar had reestablished contact with negotiators in Qatar for the hostage-ceasefire pact after weeks of silence that had sparked fears that he had been killed in an Israeli assault in Gaza.
A senior Israeli official informed that Sinwar’s stance on a hostage-and-ceasefire arrangement has not changed. Hamas has asked for the military to completely leave Gaza and stop the war. Still, Israel has resisted any agreement that would enable the terrorist organization to maintain its grip on the Strip and restore its military power.
The New York Times disclosed on Saturday that Sinwar has been increasingly certain that he will not survive the conflict in Gaza. He also believes that a regional conflict could force Israel to withdraw from Gaza, potentially removing the necessity to free hostages to secure a ceasefire in the besieged Strip.
Israel has intensified its operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon during the last two weeks in an effort to stop the terror group backed by Iran from launching constant rocket strikes on the north. This has forced government ministers to mostly shelve the hostage issue.
Sinwar’s former Shin Bet security service interrogator informed The Daily Mail on Monday that he saw the Hamas leader carrying 25 kg of dynamite in a video showing him passing down a tunnel a few days after the October 7 massacre.
The Israel Defense Forces provided the first and only public image of the Hamas leader in February. It showed Sinwar strolling through a Gaza tunnel with many family members.
Hamas took 251 captives on October 7, and it is believed that 97 of them are still in Gaza, including the corpses of at least 34 whom the IDF has confirmed as dead.
During a week-long ceasefire in late November, Hamas released 105 civilians; earlier, they had released four hostages. Troops have successfully freed eight hostages while they were still alive, and they have also recovered the bodies of 37 hostages—three of whom the military accidentally killed while trying to free themselves from their captors.