A Hamas leader dubbed ‘Gaza’s bin Laden’ used depraved torture methods, like burying people alive, secret documents have found.
Israeli soldiers deployed in the Gaza Strip claim to have found a secret document from the terror group’s headquarters that point to Yahya Sinwar’s horrific tactics, as well as the torture allegedly endured by opposition leader Mahmoud Ishtiwi before his execution.
Ishtiwi was the former commander of the Zeitoun battalion and came from a family that had been active in the movement for decades – but his fortunes changed after Sinwar arrived on the scene, The Times reports.
In 2015, they said Ishtiwi did something “immoral”, which could suggest he was gay. Other people were killed, but Ishtiwi was kept in jail for over a year.
The Israel Defence Forces think these new papers are about Ishtiwi’s questioning. They even have notes by Ishtiwi about the awful torture to make him say he stole money and told secrets to the Israelis, reports the Express US.
The documents found by Israel’s forces are believed to include a letter from the Ishtiwi family to Ismail Haniyeh, the leader-in-exile of Hamas’s political wing. The family claims that Ishtiwi was shown an open grave and told: “This is your tomb. We will pour concrete on you until it reaches your mouth – and it won’t be the first time we’ve done this.”
In the mid-80s, Sinwar, known as “Gaza’s Bin Laden”, joined al-Majd, a secret group that made sure people in Gaza followed strict rules.
When Hamas started in 1987 during the first Palestinian uprising, al-Majd turned into the secret security team for the terror group’s military side, the al-Qassam Brigades.
Sinwar initially focused on eliminating “immorality” in the enclave, but soon shifted to counterintelligence, targeting Gazans suspected of collaborating with Israeli intelligence.
In 1989, Sinwar was arrested by Israel and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of four collaborators.
He was freed in 2011 as part of a deal with Israel where over a thousand Palestinian prisoners were released in exchange for one Israeli soldier.
He was elected as Hamas’s political leader in Gaza in 2011 and won reelection in 2021.
On October 7, Hamas launched a brutal attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 others hostage.
This attack sparked an Israeli bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza that has resulted in the death of over 30,000 Palestinians, with most of the victims being women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
