Transcript of Video footage confirms Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar killed by Israeli forces | BBC News

Israel says it has killed the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwa, the man widely believed to be behind the October the seventh attacks. Israeli forces say the 61-year-old died, along with two other Hamas members, yesterday during a ground operation in the Southern city of Raqqa. They carried out DNA testing to confirm his identity today. Tonight, Simwa's body is in Tel Aviv, where people have been celebrating on the streets. The United States has called his death a game changer. Our international editor, Jeremy Bowen, has been following this story from Jerusalem, and he joins us now, Jeremy.

Yeah, thanks very much, Sophie. You know, Israel needed this. They needed a victory in Gaza from their point of view because it was feeling like a quagmire in which their main war aims of destroying Hamas as an entity and releasing their hostages had not been achieved. So in the course of the afternoon, the word started circulating that Sinhua was dead, and they were already prepared to party before the confirmation came. At the beach south of Tel Aviv, a lifeguard picked up his microphone. Attention, all bathers. It's not 100%, but there's a strong chance that the rat from the tunnels, known as Yahia Sinhua, is dead. And then it was confirmed. They knew Sinwa's death was a big victory for Israel and a big defeat for Hamas. The Israeli army released drone footage showing he was still fighting in his last moments. They said Sinawa, on a chair at the back of the room, had thrown two grenades and obviously wounded, tried to fend the drone off with a stick before he was killed. It had been a chance encounter, and at first they didn't realize who they'd killed. Then soldiers saw the dead man resembled Sinawa.

Yahia Sinawa, born in 1962, grew up in a refugee camp in Gaza. He spent 22 years in Israeli jails for killing four Palestinians who'd collaborated with Israel. So the security services had dental records and DNA to identify his body. In jail, he learned Hebrew, studied his enemy, and believed he'd worked out how to fight them. On the seventh of October last year, in a meticulously planned series of attacks, Sinua and his men inflicted Israel's worst ever defeat, and a collective trauma that is still deeply felt. The killing of civilians, the hostage taking, and the celebrations of their enemies recalled for many Israelis the Nazi Holocaust in the Second World War. Prime Minister Netanyahu said the war would go on. Today, he said, We made clear once again what happens to those who harm us. We showed the world the victory of good over evil. But the war is not over yet. It is difficult, and it is costing us dearly. Israel's response, a year of war, continued this morning. Around 25 Palestinians were killed and dozens more wounded in the latest a big raid on Jibalia camp in Northern Gaza. Israel said it bombed a Hamas command center.

Doctors said the casualties they saw were civilians. Israel's response to the seventh of October attacks has killed at least 42,000 people in Gaza. Its war aims of destroying Hamas and freeing hostages have not been achieved. So killing Yahia Sinwa is its biggest victory yet. The Hamas organization that Sinwa and others built before the seventh of October attacks is largely broken. Left of Sinwa is Ismail Haneia, Hamas political leader who was assassinated in July. Israel doesn't let us into Gaza to report, but this reaction in Han Younes, Sinwa's birthplace, was filmed for the BBC. This war is not dependent on Sinwa, Haneia, or Misha, nor on any other leader or official. It's a war of extermination against the Palestinian people. As we all know and understand, the issue is much bigger than Sinwa or anyone else. Many leaders have been assassinated before him, like Ismail Haneia. But someone else will always step in, and the struggle will continue. Back in Israel, a few people stopped to celebrate at the forensics lab where Sinwa's body was taken. Tonight, Israelis are relieved and happy that their enemy has been killed. But Hamas still has its hostages in still fighting, and will get a new leader.

Jeremy Bowen, BBC News, Jerusalem.

The killing of Yair Yash Sinwa is the latest in a series of assassinations of senior Hamas and Hezbollah leaders by Israel since the seventh of October attacks. Our security correspondent, Frank Gardner, looks now at who Israel has targeted and why, and joins me, Frank.

Well, Israel has many enemies around the Middle East, most of them funded and armed by Iran. This year, one by one, it's been eliminating the leadership of those enemies. In Beirut last month, there was the targeted assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the long-standing leader of Hezbollah, which had been firing rockets into Israel for 11 months. Hezbollah has also trained anti-Israel militants around the Middle East. Before that, also in Beirut, Israel assassinated Fouad Shokr. He was the senior Hezbollah commander who built up the bulk of its arsenal of heavy weapons, turning turning it into the world's most heavily armed non-state army. Then, the very next day, came an explosion in a Tehran guest house that killed Ismael Haneia, the leader of the political wing of Hamas, Israel's Mossad spy agency is widely assumed to have been responsible. So Yahya Sinwa was the man appointed after that to become the overall leader of Hamas, and now he, too, is dead. A crucial difference here, though, is that this was not a targeted assassination, the Israeli army found him by chance. But it's clear that in the wake of last year's October the seventh attacks, Israel has decided to go after many of its most dangerous enemies at once, wherever they are hiding and whatever the consequences.

Sophie.

Frank, thank you. I'm joined now by our North America editor, Sarah Smith, who is in Arizona, and by Jeremy Bowen, who is in Jerusalem. Sarah Smith, first of all, tell us more about the reaction tonight from the United States.

Well, this event is being celebrated here in the United States, where officials are talking about how pleased they are to hear about the elimination of a man they describe as a terrorist who had the blood of Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans on his hands. Joe Biden wasted no time picking up the phone to Prime Minister Netanyahu, who called him from Air Force One, to congratulate him on this operation. But also, he said to talk about how this seismic event, as it's being described here, could transform the conflict in the Middle East. There is now probably a much better chance of securing a ceasefire deal that would allow for the return of the hostages who are being held by Hamas because Yajira Sinwaar was a major blockage to that deal. But Joe Biden wants to go much further than that. He wants to talk about how this could now allow for the end of the war in Gaza, an end to the conflict. That's what he told Prime Minister, Nathan Yahu, he wanted to talk about. He's announced that he's going to send his senior diplomat, the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to Israel in the next few days to talk about how to move on from the conflict, how to secure Gaza, he said, without Hamas being in charge of it.

As he came off Air Force One, he was asked by somebody if he had any sense of when the war might now end, and he said, Hopefully soon.

Jeremy Bowen in Jerusalem, the extraordinary footage that we've seen this evening of the moment that the Israeli forces found him seemingly by surprise in a house in Rafeh. How much of a turning point is his death being viewed as there?

Well, I think people are probably being cautious. If you look at the whole picture, Sophie, Israel's fighting in Gaza. They scored their biggest victory of the war there so far. They're fighting in Lebanon. There was a reminder today of how hard potentially and increasingly that fight is, with Israel announcing that five of its soldiers had been killed in combat operations. The Israelis are also preparing, it seems pretty certain, to retaliate for the Iranian Ballistic Missile attack that happened a couple of weeks ago. That hasn't happened, but they're expecting it's going to be happening soon. Now, as for the Palestinians, I think that that drone footage of Sinua fighting until the very end is going to make him, in their eyes, even more of a heroic figure than he was after he be inflicted upon Israel, the greatest defeat in the history of the state. One more thing, and that is the hostages. The hostage families and their supporters have been gathering in Tel Aviv and, of course, relieved and hopeful that this could lead to a breakthrough. But some of them, though, are cautious because a lot of them believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been an obstacle to a hostage deal because of his desire, as many Israelis believe, to prolong the war in Gaza for his own political reasons.

While there's, I'd say, some relief and happiness in Israel about what's happening, there is also uncertainty. For the Palestinians, I think they're clear that this war, as the Israelis have been told to by their Prime Minister, goes on.