When he first met Hamas leader and October 7 mastermind Yahya Shinwar in 1988, Israel’s top interrogator believed he was a radicalized lunatic desperate to eradicate Israel. I knew I was looking into his eyes.
“I saw a man with murderous eyes filled with nothing but hatred,” Michael Corbi, 79, a former Shin Bet agent, told the Post.
After spending 180 hours with Sinwar after his angry arrest and imprisonment by Israeli intelligence, Koubi said he came to know the terrorist’s one true goal. It was to kill all Jews.
As Israel marks one year since the horrific Oct. 7 terrorist attack orchestrated by Sinwar, Hamas leaders will never agree to a ceasefire and will never bring peace to the region as long as they live. It cannot be taken back, Koubi said.
“Sinwar will never, ever, ever accept peace,” Kobi said. “As long as he lives, he will commit another massacre. He must be killed.”
Israel said last month that the October 7 ringleader’s whereabouts were unknown and had not been heard from for several weeks.
It remains unclear where Shinwar has been hiding in the Gaza Strip since he disappeared with his family inside a Hamas tunnel on October 10, 2023, and there are reports that he may have died. US and Israeli intelligence found no evidence that he was murdered.
Before taking over as leader of Hamas in August, Sinwar grew up in a refugee camp in Khan Yunis, where he was rapidly radicalized by the adults around him.
By the age of 13, Sinwar plans to participate in a public sermon led by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the disabled Hamas founder notorious for his ability to manipulate the Quran to justify violent jihadism. I told Koubi.
Yassin was the first Hamas member Koubi questioned when Israeli agents arrested hundreds of members of the nascent group over the killing of two IDF soldiers.
When it came time to speak with Shinwar, Koubi was appalled to learn of the brutal atrocities committed against his own people by Hamas operatives, including the four Palestinians found with Israeli troops.
“He was talking about decapitating one suspect,” Kobi recalled. “He talked about another victim that he had taken and had a grave dug and buried alive.”
“Despite everything I’ve heard in my career, I was shocked by what he said,” he added.
“How can humans be so gruesome? How can humans be so cruel?”
Sinwar’s ruthless tactics in hunting down suspected Palestinian spies earned him the nickname “The Butcher of Khan Yunis” and earned him the respect and veneration of other Hamas operatives.
As well as bragging about the 12 people he allegedly killed for Hamas, Mr. Sinwar also boasted about how much he loved radicalizing young Palestinians and teaching them violence and anti-Semitism.
Shinwar told how he visited one of the kindergartens in the Gaza Strip and divided the young children into two groups: Palestinians and Israelis.
“He once talked about giving rubber knives to children and playing a game to see who could kill the most Jews,” said a former Israeli intelligence officer.
After spending several months with Shinwaru during his interrogation, Koubi was relieved to learn that Shinwaru would spend the rest of his life behind bars.
But in 2011, Israel agreed to release him and more than 1,000 other prisoners in exchange for the freedom of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
Knowing that Shinwar is one of his bargaining chips, Koubi contacts his former boss and warns him of what will happen if Khan Younis’ butcher is released.
“I warned them that if he was released, there would be a state of terror in Gaza,” Koubi recalled.
After being released from prison, Sinwar returned to the Gaza Strip as a hero, and his fame rose to the top of Hamas’s Gaza branch, where he was responsible for the brutal October 7 massacre in which terrorists massacred more than 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 others. Organized.
Following the assassination of former Emir Ismail Haniyeh in July, Mr. Sinwar was chosen to lead the terrorist organization and became the new Emir of Gaza, overriding other Emirs who were considered favorable for the post. Appointed.
Israel has vowed to kill Sinwar for planning the October 7 attack that sparked the Gaza war, but Israeli authorities have repeatedly offered Sinwar’s ouster and security in exchange for the return of the hostages. .
But Koubi worries that letting Sinwar go again will only lead to another terrorist attack on the Jewish state.
“I know him better than anyone. He’s a danger to the world,” he said. “The only solution is to kill him.”