Yahya Sinwar, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza, was one of the main planners of the attack on Israel on October 7, but he did not expect the consequences to become “so serious,” a friend told Sky News.
Ismat Mansour said the cross-border raid last year was supposed to be a strategic operation aimed at lifting the Israeli siege of the area, releasing Sinwar's friends from prison, and making him “the leader of the Palestinian people.”
He explained that the calculations “did not go as planned,” and the Israelis’ reaction was “uncontrolled, and without any justification,” and “now we have this result.”
“he [Sinwar] I did not expect the operation to make things this complicated, to reach this point and become this dangerous. And [it] gave Israel “All the reasons and excuses to break all the rules.”
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“I believe he was one of the main people behind this operation,” Mansour said, speaking from Ramallah in the West Bank.
He claimed that if Sinwar had known the consequences of the attack, “he would never have planned an operation in this way.”
Mansour, who was in prison with Sinwar, said: agitation The leader wanted to “make a difference.”
Ismat Mansour spoke to Sky News from Ramallah
According to his former prison colleague, Al-Sinwar “tried several times to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority, to establish a good relationship with Egypt, and tried to provoke Israel to lift the siege on Gaza.” Gaza“.
He added: “After all these efforts, he did not succeed. After that, he had to make a strategic change.” [do] Such a huge operation. A large part of it was thought up by Sinwar.”
Hamas killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in its attack on Israel last October and took about 250 others hostage.
The attack led to retaliatory Israeli attacks on Gaza that killed at least 28,576 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
The Israeli army claims to have killed or captured between 8,000 and 9,000 Hamas fighters since October 7.
In the midst of air strikes and a ground offensive, about 80% of Gaza's 2.3 million people were driven from their homes.
Large areas in northern Gaza were completely destroyed, the majority of the population moved to the south, and the humanitarian crisis caused a quarter of the population to suffer from famine.
Read more:
Who is Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar?
“Gaza is the worst humanitarian crisis I have seen in 50 years” – senior UN official
Does Netanyahu have the courage to carry out a military operation in Rafah, or is it a hoax?
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The occupation army deploys a surveillance camera of the Hamas leader in the tunnel
This comes at a time when the Israeli army published a video of what it claimed was Al-Sinwar and his family walking through tunnels under the city of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, just days after the October 7 attack.
The face of the man whom Israel says is Sinwar is not shown.
But Mansour, who now works as an analyst, said the footage was an Israeli army propaganda video aimed at a local audience and also for Palestinian consumption.
“they [the Israelis] “I want to say that they are following him and trying to arrest him.”
But he said it was also a message to the people of Gaza that he was “escaping and living safely with his family while they suffer.”
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A video of the Hamas leader's tunnel explained
Mansour believes that his friend is still in the Gaza Strip and “will not leave” the Strip under “any circumstances.”
“He believes that if he leaves Gaza, his popularity and legitimacy as a leader will go,” he said.
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Sinwar spent more than 20 years in prison for killing Israelis and Palestinians suspected of collaborating with the other side.
He was released in 2011 as part of a swap of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for just one hostage Israeli soldier. Gilad Shalit.
