Former Israeli Secret Service Officer Profiles Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar

Nicknamed the “Butcher of Khan Younis,” the man who organized the massacres in Israel in early October is now believed to be hiding in tunnels in Gaza. When he was in prison in the 1990s, a former Shin Bet officer interviewed him and said he remembered a “cruel” man who “had no feelings.”

More than 30 years later, Yahya Sinwar still haunts the nights of Michael Kobi, a former Shin Bet employee, the equivalent of the DGSI in France: “I dream of Sinwar, I think about him when I eat… All the time”Hamas said on Tuesday, August 6, that it had appointed its current number one in the Gaza Strip, Yahya
Sinwar, as leader following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh.

Yahya Sinwar, originally from the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, is the architect of the October 7 attacks and is therefore public enemy number one for Israelis. He has led Hamas in the enclave since 2017 and is currently believed to be hiding in tunnels beneath the territory he still administers.

Yahya Sinwar spent 22 years in prison before being released in 2011 in a prisoner exchange with French-Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. While in prison, he was interrogated several times in the 1990s by Michael Kobi, a former member of the Jewish state secret service. For a total of 150 hours, Michael Kobi conducted these interrogations in Khan Younis Arabic. “It must be understood that within the enclave, the Arabic of Gaza City is not the same as that of Khan Younis or Rafah”explains the man who speaks seven Arabic dialects perfectly.

“I have never known anyone as cruel as Yahya Sinwar”describes Michael Kobi. He had the eyes of an assassin. He killed with his own hands. That’s what he told me. He killed 12 people he suspected of working with us.”

“Yahya Sinwar used a machete, a butcher knife and he decapitated his victims”

Michael Kobi, former Israeli secret service officer

to franceinfo

“In Gaza, they nicknamed him ‘the butcher of Khan Younis’. He was an intelligent, lively and charismatic man. But he had no feelings. He spoke with coldness, indifference. Nothing touched him,” he continues.

Even at that time, the man was clinical, direct, and he did not hide his deadly ambitions. “In 1989, he said he was planning a big massacre of Jews, in accordance with the Hamas charter. So he considers what he did a success. We should have eliminated him a long time ago.”concedes the former Shin Bet. According to Michael Kobi, the Hamas leader has just accomplished the mission of his life: “He will not surrender, he will stay in Gaza”The former Israeli secret service officer believes that a fundamentalist like Yahya Sinwar can only die as a martyr.