Military assessment: Hamas leader unable to flee to Egypt

After a video of Yahya Sinwar was circulated last night (Tuesday) in which the Hamas leader is seen walking through the Khan Yunis terror tunnels three days following the Oct. 7 attack, the security establishment says that IDF forces have reached every place he has frequented over the past four months, and every time soldiers find these hiding places, they make estimates of when he left based on analysis of the findings.

The IDF has more recent documents than this video, which are being analyzed and will be published later. The publication of the video against the backdrop of the hostage negotiations in Cairo is an act of psychological warfare against Hamas - and is intended to show Sinwar underground while his people are suffering above ground, wrote Channel 12 military correspondent, Nir Dvori.

The security establishment believes that Sinwar is still in Khan Yunis, realizes that he is ahead of IDF intelligence by many days, and that there is an ongoing effort to close this gap. If he is indeed in the Khan Yunis area, it will be possible to capture him. He realizes that it will take more time, but that eventually Israel will get its hands on him.

If at the beginning of the fighting it was estimated that he was hiding under Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, he is now believed to be in Khan Yunis. The IDF is taking into account that the Hamas leader and mastermind of the Oct. 7 massacre could reach Rafah and even try to escape to Egypt, but that Egypt has no interest in allowing him to stay there.