A drawing outlining a map of Hamas tunnels under part of Rafah was reportedly found in the pocket of Yahya Sinwar, the Palestinian terror group’s chief, when he was killed in the southern Gaza city last year.
The bloodstained, hand-drawn map, published Wednesday by Channel 12 news, shows a grid-like sketch of the tunnel network below the city’s western Tel Sultan neighborhood in southern Gaza. It also lists places where Sinwar apparently hid, along with code names for the different hideouts.
Sinwar, the principal architect of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel, evaded Israeli troops for more than a year after the attack.
The Israel Defense Forces said he managed to escape from his hometown of Khan Younis shortly before being captured by the Israeli military in early 2024.
He was killed in mid-October of that year by troops who happened upon him and other Hamas operatives in Rafah, and his identity was verified through DNA testing. The IDF subsequently released footage of his final moments in which he can be seen trying to fight off a drone after fleeing from Israeli forces, before being killed.
The crumpled document published by Channel 12, believed to have been drawn by Sinwar, appeared to display a rudimentary map of the tunnel network in Tel Sultan, where he had hidden before being forced above ground. Several locations on the map have names, including “The Old Camp,” “The Western Camp,” “The First,” and “The Last.”
The network reported that as the IDF destroyed tunnels in Rafah and Tel Sultan, Sinwar was forced aboveground, leading to his death. Parts of the map had apparent bloodstains.
Destroying Hamas’s extensive Gaza tunnel network has been a prime Israeli objective in the war. The terror group has used the subterranean system, built over the course of years, to hide its leaders and operatives from IDF troops, and to imprison Israeli hostages.
After Sinwar’s death, he was succeeded by his brother Mohammed, who was killed by the IDF this year. The IDF has assassinated numerous senior Hamas officials in Gaza and abroad since October 7, with the terror group now run by a council of leaders.