The US has reportedly ramped up efforts to hunt down Hamas terror chief and Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar in a bid to prevent a full-scale Middle East war from breaking out.
In addition to helping Israeli forces try to intercept Sinwar’s communications, the US has deployed ground-penetrating radars to map the hundreds of miles of tunnels that run underneath Gaza where the terror kingpin is believed to be hiding, the New York Times reported.
A special unit has also been established within Israel’s domestic intelligence service, Shin Bet, officials said.
One senior Israeli official described the vast amount of intelligence resources and support that American officials have poured into the manhunt for the 61-year-old since the Oct. 7 bloodshed as “priceless.”
“We’ve devoted considerable effort and resources to the Israelis for the hunt for the top leadership, particularly Sinwar,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.
“We’ve had people in Israel sitting in the room with the Israelis working this problem set. And obviously we have a lot of experience hunting high-value targets.”
Still, Sinwar, who rose to the top of Hamas following last year’s assassination of former chief Ismail Haniyeh, has managed to evade capture — even as Israeli forces have tracked down and killed other top Hamas leaders one by one.
One report, citing Israeli intelligence sources, said Sinwar’s efforts to remain on the run had gone as far as him hiding among Palestinians “dressed as a woman.”
Officials believe killing or capturing Sinwar would dramatically impact the ongoing war because it would give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a way to claim a military victory and possibly sway him to end his military onslaught in Gaza.
But American and Israeli intelligence officials both say that communicating with Sinwar had become increasingly difficult of late as potential cease-fire negotiations ramp up.
The officials believe the elusive leader has long abandoned electronic communications and relies on a network of human couriers to lead his terror organization and the ongoing military campaign.
The Israeli military initially flagged Sinwar’s radio silence back in February after the IDF carried out a raid on a bunker in Khan Younis in which they believed the Hamas leader had, until just moments before, been holed up.
Since then, the US and Israeli sides have become increasingly frustrated as the hunt for him drags on, officials said.
Meanwhile, cease-fire talks continued in Egypt with little sign of a breakthrough on key issues separating the sides.
Hamas and Israel have been trading blame over the lack of progress in talks, which aim to halt the fighting and bring 109 Israeli and foreign hostages home in an exchange deal for Palestinian prisoners.
Among the main sticking points has been Israel’s insistence on maintaining control over the so-called Philadelphi corridor on the border with Egypt, which Israel says has been used as one of the main routes for smuggling weapons into Gaza.
Israel has also insisted on checks on people moving from southern and central Gaza into northern areas across the Netzarim corridor, running across the center of the Gaza Strip, saying it needs to ensure that armed fighters cannot move north.
With Post wires
