Israel traps Hamas leader dubbed 'Gaza's Bin Laden' in bunker & vows he's a 'dead man walking' after seizing stronghold

ISRAEL claims the leader of Hamas is surrounded in a bunker after taking control of one of the terrorist group’s military strongholds on Tuesday.

IDF forces named Yahya Sinwar, known as the “Bin Laden of Gaza,” as a dead man as they approached Gaza City.

IDF troops reportedly surrounded Hamas leader Sinwar and trapped him in a bunker Credit: Twitter/ IDF

Yahya Sinwar was the Hamas mastermind behind the October 7 attacks Credit: AFP

Israeli forces claimed to have stormed the Hamas stronghold just hours ago

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the Hamas leader in Gaza is “hiding in his bunker…without contact with his associates.”

He did not reveal the exact location of the terrorist leader.

IDF forces are rapidly closing in on Gaza as warplanes attacked a terrorist cell in the north of the enclave on Tuesday before sending troops on foot.

It claims numerous anti-tank missiles, launchers, other weapons and “various intelligence materials” were discovered inside.

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At least ten Hamas militants were also killed in the explosion.

The IDF also said the plane also hit several Hamas militants barricaded in a building near al-Quds Hospital.

Gallant claimed that Israeli troops were attacking the terror group’s strongholds “from all directions, in perfect coordination with naval and air forces.”

The video shows armed Israeli soldiers entering the “nest of terror” and searching the buildings.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Sinwar, 61, as a “little Hitler in a bunker”, as he was suspected of hiding in a Hamas control center under a hospital in the Gaza Strip.

And Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht compared him to al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden for his role in Hamas crimes.

Lt. Col. Hecht said, “Yahya Sinwar is the face of evil. He is the mastermind behind this, as was Bin Laden [with the 9/11 US attacks].”

The evil leader of Hamas was imprisoned in the late 1980s for a series of brutal crimes including the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers.

At the time, Sinwar ran the group’s counter-intelligence wing known as al-Majd, or Glory, force and allegedly forced the victim to bury his own brother alive.

Former spy Micha Kobi told the Financial Times that Sinwar revealed how they punished a man accused of spying for Israel.

Sinwar called the suspect’s brother, who was a member of Hamas, and “made him bury his own brother alive,” Kobi said.

His ruthless terrorist tactics earned him the nickname “the butcher of Khan Younis” after the second city in Gaza where he was born.

In the end, a secret Israeli military court convicted him of the murder of 12 Palestinians, according to the FT, but after spending 22 years behind bars, he became the leader of imprisoned Hamas fighters.

One account suggests that he punished a prisoner for talking to an Israeli by shoving his face into a furnace.

But he was freed in 2011 as part of a prisoner swap in which more than 1,000 Palestinians were released in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been kidnapped and held in Gaza.

Sinwar was officially included in the list of “Specially Designated Global Terrorists”, but in 2015 the US State Department

The Israelis had previously called on Hamas fighters in Gaza to kill or hand over the specter themselves because it would “speed up the end of the war”.

The IDF said on Tuesday: “During the past day, IDF troops secured a military stronghold belonging to the terrorist organization Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip.

“In coordination with soldiers on the ground, an IDF fighter jet attacked a cell of approximately 10 terrorists.

“Subsequently, IDF ground troops identified an anti-tank missile cell operating in their vicinity.

“Troops directed an IDF plane that attacked a terrorist cell.”

An Israeli minister told Sky News that more than 3,000 Hamas fighters had been killed in Gaza.

It comes as pictures show Israeli forces using bulldozers to clear our mines and explosives and demolish buildings as they push through Hamas’ “nest of terror”.

Their arsenal includes the D9R armored bulldozer – nicknamed Doobi or “Teddy Bear” – which can repel rockets and tackle a maze of tunnels and sniper emplacements.

With 15 tons of extra armor and a reinforced blade, the beast is nearly impenetrable to weapons or explosives.

Israel has also trained a unit of attack dogs to be sent into Hamas’ vast network of tunnels and take down terrorists.

Dramatic footage of the exercise shows the hound running through a mock-up of an underground passageway before mauling a mock fighter.

Robots are also being deployed to locate entrances and explore tunnels before ground troops are sent in.

On Tuesday, IDF forces claimed to have discovered the entrance to a tunnel system near an amusement park in Gaza.

Hamas terrorists were caught fighting with Israeli soldiers after they were surrounded on Tuesday in a hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, reports The Telegraph.

IDF planes, tanks and soldiers cornered the crumbling remnants of Hamas with 1,000 fighters cowering in a hospital and a nearby school.

A large number of aircraft were launched as the IDF made what was described as a “last stand” in beating the militants.

An Israeli commander told The Telegraph that less than 100 Hamas fighters are hiding in the hospital, and that the remaining terrorists from the division used to be ten times that number.

The founder of Hamas’ military wing and its intelligence service, Sinwar has been the terrorist group’s leader in Gaza since 2017.

As the IDF launched a manhunt for him after last month’s killings by Hamas in Israel, it released an earlier video of him telling his supporters: “They will get nothing from us here in Gaza but guns and fire. They will never get anything but death and killing.”

Born in a refugee camp, Sinwar was captured and sentenced to 426 years in prison in 1989 for the murder of two Israeli soldiers.

He was the most prominent of more than 1,000 terrorist prisoners released as part of a 2011 swap deal to secure the release of a kidnapped Israeli soldier.

Israel has vowed to remove Hamas from power and crush its military capabilities amid its bloody battle with the terror group.

Hamas-led health officials, meanwhile, said at least 23 Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday morning in the southern towns of Khan Younis and Rafah.

The death toll has topped 10,000 in Gaza this week, the health ministry said – with more than 2,300 missing and feared buried under rubble.

About 1,400 people in Israel have died, mostly civilians killed in the October 7 Hamas incursion that started the war.

It comes as IDF soldiers surround Gaza City a month after the horrific massacre on October 7 after they claimed to have split the enclave “in two”.

At least 100 British nationals have now fled Gaza via the Rafah border crossing.

Dozens are still feared trapped in the war zone as Israel entered its 32nd day of war with Hamas on Tuesday, with 500 people crossing the border into Egypt.

Israel used bulldozers to penetrate the Gaza StripCredit: AFP

Israeli forces say they have discovered the entrance to a Hamas tunnel shaft near an amusement park in GazaCredit: Reuters

Footage released by the IDF shows a hole discovered in the ground next to an amusement park that they claim leads to the terror group’s labyrinth of tunnels