Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Wed 05/28/2025 View Tue 05/27/2025 View Mon 05/26/2025 View Sun 05/25/2025 View Sat 05/24/2025 View Fri 05/23/2025 View Thu 05/22/2025
2024-08-28 Israel-Palestine-Jordan
NYT: US giving ‘priceless’ help to Israel in hunt for Sinwar, but he remains elusive
[IsraelTimes] US-Israeli team working intensively for 10 months on locating Hamas leader in Gaza, report says, though one source claims Jerusalem is benefiting more from the relationship than DC
There’s always that one guy. Don’t be that guy.
Israel and the US have been cooperating for more than 10 months in the hunt for elusive Hamas
..always the voice of sweet reason...
leader Yahya Sinwar, The New York Times

...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...

reported on Sunday, detailing the intensive effort to find the architect of the October 7 invasion and slaughter in southern Israel.

Citing two dozen unnamed officials from Israel and the US, the report said the two countries — both of which classify Hamas as a terrorist organization — have jointly poured vast resources into the hunt for Sinwar, including "ground penetrating radar" supplied by the US.

However,
ars longa, vita brevis...
despite the intense cooperation, which one Israeli official described to the newspaper as "priceless," another source familiar with the arrangement said it was "very lopsided," with Israel gaining far more from the US than it was sharing in return.

According to this source, the Americans have shared information leading to Hamas leaders other than Sinwar, hoping to receive reciprocated Israeli intelligence that would lead them to the remaining American hostages in Hamas captivity, but Israel has not been as forthcoming.
Be trustworthy, my dear, and you are more likely to be trusted. You can start by discontinuing all support to the anti-Bibi movement, and stop trying to protect Hamas and Hezbollah from the consequences of their actions. Well, not you, exactly, but the Harris/Biden administration altogether.
Describing the joint effort, the report says a joint Israeli-American intelligence force was set up and tasked with monitoring Sinwar’s communications, which were conducted electronically at the beginning of the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
but have since been shifted to couriers, due to the scarcity of fuel to power generators and to evade interception.

While Sinwar was still communicating with his organization electronically, the team was able to monitor Sinwar’s calls with other Hamas officials.

During this period, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant pushed his government to okay shipments of fuel into Gaza to power cell networks needed to keep Sinwar communicating electronically, so Israel could continue eavesdropping on the Hamas leader, the New York Times reported.

Though they could not pinpoint the Hamas chief’s location, the intercepted communications allowed the teams to piece together a picture of his life in Hamas’s tunnels, including discovering that Sinwar regularly monitors Hebrew media and watches the 8 p.m. Israeli news, according to the newspaper.

Gallant initially ordered fuel supplies to Gaza cut along with other goods on October 7, arguing they would be used to bolster Hamas and would power generators to keep oxygen flowing into the group’s vast tunnel system.

In November, following heavy international pressure, the war cabinet voted to begin allowing in fuel shipments, over the objections of right-wing members of the government who have pushed to cut any aid into Gaza until all hostages are released.

Despite the shipments of fuel, Sinwar long ago stopped communicating electronically, making it much more difficult for officials and ceasefire negotiators to track him, the report noted.

The US and Israel believe Sinwar spent the first weeks of the war hiding in a tunnel under Gaza City, where the report said IDF troops found footage of Sinwar moving his family to another locale.

From Gaza City, Sinwar was believed to have moved to tunnels under Khan Younis, where he came close to being captured at the end of January but fled just before the army raided his bunker.

According to the NYT, this escape was hasty, with Sinwar leaving behind roughly a million dollars in shekels in the tunnel.

As part of its war with Hamas in Gaza, the IDF has eliminated many members of the terrorist organization’s leadership over the last 10 months. Included on the list of targets were the organization’s top three leaders, Sinwar, former political leader Ismail Haniyeh
...became Prime Minister of Gaza after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank...
, and Mohammad Deif.

Deif was killed in an Israeli Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
in Gaza in July. Haniyeh was killed in a kaboom in Tehran at the end of the month, but Israel has not officially confirmed any involvement in the liquidation. Now, Sinwar, who replaced Haniyeh as Hamas’s political leader, is the most big shot on the list who has yet to be captured or killed.

Some sources in the NYT report believe eliminating Sinwar is the achievement Israel needs to declare that Hamas has been fully defeated, and will make Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more amenable to ending the military campaign in Gaza.

It is unclear, however, how Sinwar’s death would affect negotiations for a hostage-for-ceasefire deal, as the report says the Hamas leader has had to okay every development in the talks in Doha and Cairo.
Given that Hamas is playing everyone for suckers while they wait for Allah, Iran, or America to step in and force Israel to surrender, the permanent absence of Mr. Sinwar from the proceedings will have very little effect. In fact, like Japan after Nagasaki and Hiroshima, his descent into Hell will likely concentrate his successors’ minds immensely.
The war in Gaza broke out on October 7 following an unprecedented surprise attack by Hamas in which hard boyz rampaged through southern Israel murdering some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages. The attack was widely believed to have been engineered by Sinwar, who was released from Israeli prison as part of a 2011 prisoner exchange for IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.

Posted by trailing wife 2024-08-28 2024-08-28 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11153 views ]  Top
 File under: Hamas 

#1 I think I have found Yahya Sinwar - IMO, he dyed his beard and hair and poses as Jack Smith.
Posted by Grom the Reflective 2024-08-28 03:01||   2024-08-28 03:01|| Front Page Top

#2 Have they check our southern border yet?
Posted by Mercutio 2024-08-28 08:37||   2024-08-28 08:37|| Front Page Top

#3 Sounds like a press release from the CIA about how hard they're working.
Posted by ed in texas 2024-08-28 09:17||   2024-08-28 09:17|| Front Page Top

#4 Since it has been a month, whacking Sinwar end embarasing Hamas is Kamala's position?

I know, I know, but if they believe she is in charge they have to believe that too, solid 1/3 of her supporters will be a bit upset.
Posted by swksvolFF 2024-08-28 10:01||   2024-08-28 10:01|| Front Page Top

#5 I think that they spelled "useless" incorrectly.
Posted by EMS Artifact 2024-08-28 12:16||   2024-08-28 12:16|| Front Page Top

#6 not sure how good the ground penetrating radar is

I presume the USA has pretty good stuff and that it is very effective in locating un exploded ordinance. Finding tunnels more than 100' underground would be quite a bit more trouble.
Posted by Lord Garth  2024-08-28 17:29||   2024-08-28 17:29|| Front Page Top

#7 Probe by penetrator MOABS
Posted by Frank G 2024-08-28 19:07||   2024-08-28 19:07|| Front Page Top

#8  not sure how good the ground penetrating radar is

I wonder if an oil exploration crew would have any luck using seismic methods...they can map out underground salt domes and such. Probably not used to working under mortar and small arms fire, though. However, continuous mortar fire might eliminate the need for a thumper truck.
Posted by SteveS 2024-08-28 19:38||   2024-08-28 19:38|| Front Page Top

15:28 trailing wife
15:26 Pancho Poodle8452
15:26 trailing wife
14:34 Frank G
14:28 Melancholic
14:27 NoMoreBS
14:14 swksvolFF
14:12 swksvolFF
13:54 mossomo
13:51 mossomo
13:50 NoMoreBS
13:50 Abu Uluque
13:44 Abu Uluque
13:41 NoMoreBS
13:39 Abu Uluque
13:36 mossomo
13:36 swksvolFF
13:32 mossomo
13:26 Frank G
13:12 Regular joe
13:12 mossomo
13:11 swksvolFF
13:08 Abu Uluque
13:00 swksvolFF









Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com