Israeli officials are advertising $1 million worth of bounties payable to anyone who leads them to the masterminds of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack that ignited the war in Gaza.
"Anyone who can present information that could help us arrest the individuals who brought destruction and ruins to the Gaza Strip will be rewarded,” the Israel Defense Forces promised in leaflets dropped in Gaza.
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The Arabic-language flyers declare that “Hamas’s end is near,” according to an Israel Today translation, and imply that cooperation in the manhunt would be good “for your future.” In parallel, Israeli officials have rebuffed international demands for an immediate ceasefire, forecasting months of continuing conflict in the war against Hamas.
“They built infrastructure under the ground and above the ground and it is not easy to destroy them,” Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant told White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan at the outset of a meeting in Jerusalem. “It will require a period of time — it will last more than several months, but we will win and we will destroy them.”
His prognostication flies in the face of international demands for an immediate ceasefire, expressed most recently in a resolution that passed the United Nations General Assembly this week with a 153-10 vote. Even as Gallant reiterated their expectation of a protracted war, they advertised a $400,000 bounty for information on the whereabouts of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, along with other rewards for his key deputies.
“Sinwar was the man who pulled off the information operation that hoodwinked the Israelis for two years leading up to 10/7,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior vice president Jonathan Schanzer told the Washington Examiner. “So, with him it's personal … they want his scalp.”
The Hamas chief’s brother, Muhammed Sinwar, would fetch a $300,000 reward, while Mohammed Deif, the elusive commander of Hamas’s militant brigades, has a $100,000 price on his head. Deif has evaded or survived multiple Israeli attacks since his rise to power in 2002, but IDF officials put an even higher premium, $200,000, on “the commander of Hamas’s Khan Yunis Battalion,” Rafa’a Salameh, where the heaviest fighting is underway.
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The killing of those leaders, a top priority for Israeli officials throughout the conflict, might hasten the end of the war.
“We're already seeing large numbers of surrenders,” Schanzer said. “The Israelis see that [Hamas’s] morale is beginning to flag. And I think they believe that might help them get their targets. But I think they also believe that, if they get their targets, it might lead to an acceleration of this trend of surrender.”