Israeli Defence Forces on Wednesday said, our troops had uncovered the video in a security camera during an operation in a tunnel, without elaborating on the location.
Army spokesman Daniel Hagari. Said, “The footage captured in the camera reveals Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, walking in a secret tunnel with his children and wife,”
He added, “The passage suggests he escaped with his family from an underground Hamas tunnel to another secret compound.”
The IDF is closing in on Sinwar with each passing moment, we will not stop until we capture him dead or alive,” he added.
Despite the ambiguity regarding the authenticity of the locations, Israeli troops have intensified operations in Khan Younis, southern Gaza’s main city which is also the hometown of Yahya Sinwar.
Hagari added that the video was filmed soon after the October 7 deadly Hamas strike on Israel.
Earlier this month, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said, that Sinwar is going “hideout to hideout for his safety” and also he is not leading the military operations in Gaza.
“His status is now of an absconder on the run from being the Hamas leader” Gallant took a jibe at Sinwar without mentioning his location. Sinwar is leading the group and has not been seen since the October 7 Hamas assault.
Despite IDF’s invasion, they have not been able to detect any of Hamas’s top leaders.
Israel is under increasing international pressure for its Gaza offensive. CIA director William Burns met with Mossad leader David Barnea in Cairo to discuss a Qatari-brokered deal to halt fighting in exchange for Hamas freeing captives temporarily.
A day after Israeli troops liberated two hostages in Gaza, the families of the remaining captives issued an emotional appeal to Barnea and the Israeli team ahead of the Cairo talks: "Do not return until everyone comes home -- the living and the dead."
The Israeli campaign group Captives and Missing Families Forum has asked the government to exhaust all options for returning the approximately 130 captives who are still thought to be in Gaza. Israel claims 29 of them are presumed dead.
The forum referred to it as a "once-in-a-lifetime mission" and stated that they must "not return without a deal".
Militants kidnapped roughly 250 people in an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7, killing over 1,160 people in Israel, the majority of them civilians, as per Israeli official data.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian health ministry, Israel's unrelenting shelling and ground offensive in Hamas-run Gaza has killed at least 28,473 individuals, the majority of whom are women and children, since then.
The Cairo summit comes as the US and the UN advised Israel against launching a ground offensive into Rafah without a strategy to protect civilians, who claim they have nowhere else to go.
With Rafah on edge, several inhabitants began demolishing makeshift tents and preparing to leave again.
"We are sleeping in the street, (the tent) doesn't have a roof, it's made of nylon -- if it gets hit by a missile, you will die instantly," Fayez Abed, a resident of Gaza, told a media outlet.
Following White House talks with Jordan's King Abdullah II on Monday, US President Joe Biden urged that people in Rafah "need to be protected," describing them as "exposed and vulnerable."