The discovery of a pistol next to the body of martyr Yahya Sinwar, the head of the political bureau of Hamas, following the raid on the house where he engaged in an armed confrontation with Israeli forces, has sparked questions about whether the weapon belonged to an officer from an elite Israeli unit killed in 2018.
Hebrew media outlets reported that the Israeli occupation subjected the pistol found at the scene to examination, to determine if it belonged to Lieutenant Colonel Mahmoud Khair Al-Din. Khair Al-Din, a Druze officer serving in the elite “Sayeret Matkal” unit, was killed in Khan Younis in 2018 during a covert intelligence operation.
Khair Al-Din, originally from the village of Hurfeish in northern occupied Palestine, was shot dead by Al-Qassam Brigades fighters the moment the Israeli unit’s identity was exposed. The unit fled after their cover was blown, leaving behind a silenced pistol and losing one of their commanders.
At that time, Al-Qassam Brigades handed over the pistol to Sinwar as evidence of the failure of the Israeli operation, which ended with the exposure of the entire unit, revealing their identities, movements, and secret recordings obtained from their vehicle. This was despite an Israeli airstrike aimed at destroying the vehicle to eliminate any sensitive data it contained.
After examining the pistol found beside Sinwar, the Israeli army announced that it did not belong to the slain officer from the 2018 operation, confirming that it was a different model altogether.
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