“Sinwar is said to no longer trust electronic communications, fearing that the Israeli army will discover his location and kill him,” the report said.
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN | August 13, 2024
Yahya Sinwar highlighted in a video published by the IDF on February 13, 2024 (photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is isolated in Gaza but is still communicating with Hamas fighters and with the Hamas leadership in other parts of the Middle East. This must be true in order for Sinwar to have been elected as the new “political” leader of Hamas, replacing Ismail Haniyeh. New Arabic media articles have focused on this question.
Articles at Asharq al-Awsat and also at Al-Ain media have focused on the issue of Sinwar’s communications. “Many are wondering how Yahya Sinwar communicates with his comrades underground,” Al-Ain media noted. “Sinwar is said to no longer trust electronic communications, fearing that the Israeli army will discover his location and kill him,” the report said.
The fact that Sinwar is wary of his communications being intercepted would not make him the first terrorist leader or cartel leader to be wary of this threat to his existence. Mafia leaders in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s were wary of using phones, for instance. Sinwar is merely using the kind of security and tradecraft that would be expected of a man in his position. On the one hand Sinwar needs to be wary of being found and eliminated. On the other he doesn’t want Hamas to fall into a leadership vacuum and chaos in Gaza.
Sinwar may be on the run but he also knows Gaza very well. He grew up in Khan Yunis. He knows the city and its tunnels. He has evaded Israel for years. In addition he has also grown privileged in his role because he was released by Israel in 2011 and he was able to plan the October 7 attack largely in the open.
Under Sinwar, Hamas received huge sums of cash from abroad, including from Qatar. Therefore Sinwar is not only used to exercising extreme precautions to guarantee his continued freedom, but he also likely senses that he has some privileges because of his position.
POSTERS DEPICTING Yahya Sinwar (right) and Hassan Nasrallah hang from a building near Begin Boulevard in Jerusalem as part of an ‘Ahdut Achshav’ campaign for unity among Israelis, earlier this year. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has played directly into Sinwar’s hands, posits the writer. (credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Recent reports have painted a picture of Sinwar on the run, leaving rooms in tunnels with the coffee still hot, as he has been pursued. This may be accurate, but it also shows that he continues to find a way to work behind the scenes to control Hamas. The fact that Hamas has elevated him now to its “political” leadership shows that there is no difference between the “military” and “political” wings of Hamas and that the mastermind of the October 7 genocide is firmly in control. He uses couriers to pass messages, the recent reports indicated.
Sinwar’s involvement in ceasefire negotiations
Another piece of evidence showing he is in complete control is the fact that the hostage talks have dragged on. Hamas must be able to communicate with Sinwar or it couldn’t continue the talks for ten months. The talks are largely just used by Doha to keep Hamas in power so that it can remain influential after the Gaza war is over.
In order for that to happen there has to be at least a sign that Sinwar is communicating a “yes” or “no” to the talks.
Hamas under Sinwar has more international support than it had in the past. It has backing from Russia, Turkey, China, Iran and other countries. Clearly an organization without a leader could not achieve that. Sinwar therefore not only communicates with his remaining brigade commanders, but somehow also communicates with Hamas abroad.
Hamas “relies on special communication protocols that they use primarily to communicate with parties abroad,” Asharq Al-Awsat says.
“This is due, according to the report, to the almost permanent interruption of telephone and internet lines in Gaza, and is also done in an attempt to avoid being tracked by Israeli intelligence,” Al-Ain noted.
“According to the source, Hamas leaders relied at the beginning of the war on the movement’s communications lines, which Hamas military engineers had developed as early as 2009, and began to develop intermittently, using mainly foreign technology.”
Furthermore the article quotes “unnamed sources as saying that Hamas’s military wing had installed underground telephone centers connected to old communication lines at certain points above ground, noting that these sites were periodically inspected in an attempt to prevent infiltration.”
In the past Israel has found that Hamas even had a computer and technology site underneath an UNRWA headquarters. It is worth considering that many international NGOs and other international organizations have in the past been able to bring various types of technology, data centers and communications equipment into Gaza. It’s plausible to conclude that Sinwar and Hamas may have diverted some of this technology for their own use or exploited various sites in Gaza used by international organizations. Hamas has often hidden in schools, shelters and even hospitals for instance.
“Hamas appears to have maintained this method of communication even at the start of the ongoing war, despite the Israeli military’s focus on destroying part of these communications systems, along with underground tunnels that it says contain important communications infrastructure,” Al-Ain noted.
Ceasefire talks are being held inside the Gaza Strip, “using internal communications systems, and their outputs are being transmitted abroad by various means, including via the Internet linked to electronic chips, and through the use of encrypted software purchased from abroad,” the report added.
Since the beginning of the war on October 7, Israel has been trying to track down Sinwar, but has not succeeded, the report concluded. “The prevailing belief in Israel is that Sinwar does not use mobile phones at all because they are easily monitored by Israeli intelligence and even Western intelligence that monitors the Gaza Strip.”Al-Ain’s article goes on to note that “according to Israeli estimates, Sinwar communicates with a limited number of confidants through an intermittent chain, such that if one of the members of the chain is reached, it will not be possible to reach the Hamas leader himself.”
Sinwar is doing what other terror leaders in the past did. Osama Bin Laden, for instance, lived in a villa near a Pakistani military academy in Abbottabad for many years. He used one courier during that time. The US found Bin Laden by tracing the courier after many years of failed efforts to find Bin Laden.
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