Posted on 09/05/24
| News Source: Arutz-7
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar planned to smuggle himself, other Hamas leaders, and the remaining Israeli hostages through the Philadelphi Corridor to Sinai and from there to Iran, the Jewish Chronicle reported on Thursday, citing intelligence officials.
According to the report, the plan was revealed by a captured senior Hamas official during his interrogation by Israeli security forces, as well as by information obtained from documents seized last week, the same day the six bodies of the murdered hostages were retrieved.
The report notes that the Hamas leader understands that the end of his organization is near and his only way out would be to sneak out of the Gaza Strip and flee to Iran. For that reason, according to the report, Hamas is insisting on Israel withdrawing from the corridor which runs along the Egyptian border.
Earlier on Thursday, the Prime Minister spoke to Fox News and denied that Israel and the terror organization were close to striking a deal. "It’s exactly inaccurate," Netanyahu told Fox & Friends. "There's a story, a narrative out there that there's a deal out there … that’s just a false narrative."
The Prime Minister explained his opposition to relinquishing control over the Philadelphi Corridor: "It prevents Gaza from becoming this Iranian terror enclave again, which can threaten our existence, but it's also the way to prevent them from smuggling hostages that they keep through the cease-fire into Egypt, into the Sinai, where they could disappear, and then they'll end up in Iran or in Yemen, and they're lost forever."
He added: "So if you want to release the hostages and you want to make sure that Gaza doesn't pose a threat to Israel again, you've got to keep the Philadelphia corridor … and that's what we're really doing right now."