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US offering Israel intel on Hamas leaders whereabouts if Israel makes no major operation in Rafah.
According to the Times of Israel, referencing the Washinton Post, the US is offering sensitive Intel on locations of Hamas leaders and their tunnel hideouts IF Israel does not launch a major operation against Rafah.
The US is also offering tent encampments for Palestinians displaced from Rafah and a humanitarian aid infrastructure for them.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/us-said-offering-israel-sensitive-intel-on-hamas-leaders-whereabouts-if-no-major-rafah-op/
Looks to me like the offer would make targeting Hamas leaders more precise than a major operation in Rafah would. It also would address humanitarian concerns and aid that Biden has said are necessary during this war.
33 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
From a few days ago
From April 2024
From Feb 2024
&ab_channel=NBCNews
Image from Apr 2023 in Gaza
File: Yahia al-Sinwar, the Gaza Strip chief of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, greets supporters as he arrives to attend a rally marking Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day, April 14, 2023. (Mohammed Abed/AFP)
Very long article about his prison sentence.
The two officials speaking to The Times of Israel were unable to say with certainty where Sinwar is currently located, but they cited recent intelligence assessments that placed the Hamas leader in underground tunnels in the Khan Younis area, some five miles north of Rafah.
A third official — an Israeli one — asserted that Sinwar is still in Gaza.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/sinwar-not-hiding-in-rafah-officials-tell-toi-as-pm-publicly-prioritizes-idf-op-there/
A third official — an Israeli one — asserted that Sinwar is still in Gaza.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/sinwar-not-hiding-in-rafah-officials-tell-toi-as-pm-publicly-prioritizes-idf-op-there/
From April 2024
Sinwar briefly emerged from hiding in Gaza, met with fighters, Hamas source claims
Hamas terror group leader Yahya Sinwar briefly surfaced from his underground hiding place and walked the streets of the Gaza Strip, an official in the group claimed.
The official, who spoke anonymously to the London-based Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper in an interview published Wednesday, refuted Israeli claims that Sinwar is cut off from his forces on the ground, saying the terror chief met with fighters and reviewed sites where there were clashes with the Israel Defense Forces.
Israel has made eliminating Sinwar a key element of its goal to destroy Hamas after the terror group’s devastating October 7 attack on the country that opened the still ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. Israeli officials have claimed that Sinwar is forced to hunker down in Hamas’s vast network of tunnels beneath Gaza, leaving him isolated from the group’s gunmen.
They have indicated he was likely in tunnels under Khan Younis or Rafah, surrounded by hostages.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/sinwar-briefly-emerged-from-hiding-in-gaza-met-with-fighters-hamas-source-claims/
Hamas terror group leader Yahya Sinwar briefly surfaced from his underground hiding place and walked the streets of the Gaza Strip, an official in the group claimed.
The official, who spoke anonymously to the London-based Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper in an interview published Wednesday, refuted Israeli claims that Sinwar is cut off from his forces on the ground, saying the terror chief met with fighters and reviewed sites where there were clashes with the Israel Defense Forces.
Israel has made eliminating Sinwar a key element of its goal to destroy Hamas after the terror group’s devastating October 7 attack on the country that opened the still ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. Israeli officials have claimed that Sinwar is forced to hunker down in Hamas’s vast network of tunnels beneath Gaza, leaving him isolated from the group’s gunmen.
They have indicated he was likely in tunnels under Khan Younis or Rafah, surrounded by hostages.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/sinwar-briefly-emerged-from-hiding-in-gaza-met-with-fighters-hamas-source-claims/
From Feb 2024
&ab_channel=NBCNews
Image from Apr 2023 in Gaza
File: Yahia al-Sinwar, the Gaza Strip chief of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, greets supporters as he arrives to attend a rally marking Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day, April 14, 2023. (Mohammed Abed/AFP)
Very long article about his prison sentence.
'I Asked Sinwar, Is It Worth 10,000 Innocent Gazans Dying? He Said, Even 100,000 Is Worth It'
The teeth of Fatah inmates are in poor condition, whereas Hamas prisoners maintain hygiene and purity. Theirs is a religious way of life. Ascetic. With rigid discipline. They pray five times a day, don't touch sweets, don't smoke. There's no such thing as smoking in Hamas. You see a 50-year-old prisoner who is entirely free of any signs of illness. No tooth decay. I'd say, "You're Hamas?" They would say, "Yes, how did you know?" "By the teeth," I replied. A very basic insight. Everything has meaning – it's the same with regard to their way of life, for example. At 9 P.M., there is a total lights-out in the prison's Hamas wings; in the Fatah wings they watch television all night.
You know, when I first started out at the service, thousands of prisoners had already been released as part of the Oslo Accords framework. Who was still incarcerated? Around 800 inmates. There was the really hard-core element of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and another 200 Fatah prisoners with "blood on their hands." When I came to Nafha Prison [in the Negev], as a dentist, the whole Hamas leadership was imprisoned there: [Yahya] Sinwar; his right-hand man Rawhi Mushtaha; Tawfiq Abu Naim, the head of the security branches; Ali al-Amoudi, Hamas' communications director and manager of Sinwar's office. And because I'd worked twice a week at a prison for criminals too, I understood that the behavior I saw at Nafha [among security prisoners] was very unusual.
It wasn't the socially oriented organization, as it were, that Israel aspired to cultivate in the 1980s as the entity that would pose a threat to Fatah. It was already a military organization then. The thing with Hamas is that they have always been a faction of the Muslim Brotherhood. They set themselves Islamist goals: to annihilate the State of Israel, to liberate sacred Muslim lands. The Israelis just didn't get it: For them, Hamas and Fatah were the same thing.
I said to Sinwar, "Tell me, is it worth it for 10,000 innocent people to die, in order to free 100 prisoners?" The reply was, "Even 100,000 is worth it." Their notion of time is different, and the price in blood they are ready to pay in order to achieve their goal is different. Because each person who dies is a shahid [martyr]. It's warfare in the name of God.
https://archive.ph/8gEzD
The teeth of Fatah inmates are in poor condition, whereas Hamas prisoners maintain hygiene and purity. Theirs is a religious way of life. Ascetic. With rigid discipline. They pray five times a day, don't touch sweets, don't smoke. There's no such thing as smoking in Hamas. You see a 50-year-old prisoner who is entirely free of any signs of illness. No tooth decay. I'd say, "You're Hamas?" They would say, "Yes, how did you know?" "By the teeth," I replied. A very basic insight. Everything has meaning – it's the same with regard to their way of life, for example. At 9 P.M., there is a total lights-out in the prison's Hamas wings; in the Fatah wings they watch television all night.
You know, when I first started out at the service, thousands of prisoners had already been released as part of the Oslo Accords framework. Who was still incarcerated? Around 800 inmates. There was the really hard-core element of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and another 200 Fatah prisoners with "blood on their hands." When I came to Nafha Prison [in the Negev], as a dentist, the whole Hamas leadership was imprisoned there: [Yahya] Sinwar; his right-hand man Rawhi Mushtaha; Tawfiq Abu Naim, the head of the security branches; Ali al-Amoudi, Hamas' communications director and manager of Sinwar's office. And because I'd worked twice a week at a prison for criminals too, I understood that the behavior I saw at Nafha [among security prisoners] was very unusual.
It wasn't the socially oriented organization, as it were, that Israel aspired to cultivate in the 1980s as the entity that would pose a threat to Fatah. It was already a military organization then. The thing with Hamas is that they have always been a faction of the Muslim Brotherhood. They set themselves Islamist goals: to annihilate the State of Israel, to liberate sacred Muslim lands. The Israelis just didn't get it: For them, Hamas and Fatah were the same thing.
I said to Sinwar, "Tell me, is it worth it for 10,000 innocent people to die, in order to free 100 prisoners?" The reply was, "Even 100,000 is worth it." Their notion of time is different, and the price in blood they are ready to pay in order to achieve their goal is different. Because each person who dies is a shahid [martyr]. It's warfare in the name of God.
https://archive.ph/8gEzD
