After a year-long hunt, IDF soldiers encountered and killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar without knowing it was him

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In the end, after a year-long, multi-agency manhunt involving the latest technology, Israel’s best special forces and American assistance, Yahya Sinwar appears to have been killed by regular soldiers who had stumbled into him and had no idea whom they had killed.

According to the initial reports, they were not there on an assassination operation and had no prior intelligence that they could be in the vicinity of the elusive Hamas leader, architect of the 7 October attacks, the man Israel most wanted to kill. It was only after they took a closer look at his face and found identity documents on him that the troops realised they had got Sinwar.