On Wednesday, the eve of Sukkot, around ten in the morning, a soldier of the 450th Battalion spotted two suspicious figures moving between the ruins of the neighborhood. The battalion commander advanced to the spot with infantry and armor.
While sweeping the area, three figures were identified: two were covered with blankets, and the third was wearing a combat vest and carrying a weapon. The commander of the 450th Battalion opened fire on the figure with the combat vest and hit his hand. The IDF stressed that Sinwar did not lose his hand from this.
At this point the terrorists split up, two of them entering a nearby house and the third, wounded in the hand, who turned out to be Sinwar, fled to another house. The two returned fire at the force, and a soldier from the 450th Battalion was severely wounded in the chest. He was evacuated by helicopter to the hospital, and since then his condition has improved.
The battalion commander dispatched another force under the command of a platoon commander in the paratroopers' NCO course to check the house to which Sinwar had fled. In the stairwell at the entrance to the house, he noticed fresh bloodstains. Sinwar threw two grenades at him from the window, one of which exploded but did not cause casualties. The force began attempting to demolish the building using tank fire, machine guns, and shoulder launched missiles equipped with a large metal rod to break through obstacles, known as Matadors.
After the first shell, a drone was sent in, and it recorded Sinwar, sitting wounded on the couch, throwing a stick at the drone. At 4 p.m., six hours after the incident began, another shell was fired, along with machine-gun fire, from which Sinwar was killed.
In the evening a drone was again introduced into the house and it identified a corpse, but even at this stage it was not possible to identify who it was. With morning a drone was again introduced into the house, and this time the soldiers noticed that the dead terrorist looked like Sinwar. Photographs were sent to the command post.
A senior officer sent them to his counterpart in the ISA's Operations Division, writing, "Bro, do you recognize him?" The ISA arrived at the scene and began the forensic tests required to identify Sinwar. When the commanding officer arrived at the scene himself, he immediately understood that it was Sinwar. WATCH
