Yayha Sinwar, the Gaza-based leader of Hamas responsible for the October 7 terror attack against Israel, issued his first public statement Monday since that event, proving that he is still alive and vowing to keep fighting — though his forces are losing, badly.

The Times of Israel reported that Sinwar made several exaggerated claims of battlefield success in attempting to rally his side:

In his first public message since October 7, Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar says the terror group is facing a “fierce, violent and unprecedented battle” against Israel.

…

Sinwar falsely claims that the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, has killed over a thousand Israeli soldiers. According to the IDF, 156 soldiers have been killed in the Israeli ground operation in Gaza, far below the figures given by the terror leader. Over 300 members of the security forces were killed in the October 7 onslaught.

The terror leader also gives inflated claims of the number of Israeli soldiers injured in the war, and the amount of Israeli military equipment that has been destroyed.

Sinwar’s presence in the Gaza Strip has been reported before. Last month, an elderly Israeli hostage, Yocheved Lifshitz, who had been a peace activist before she was abducted and then freed, told reporters that she had confronted Sinwar when he arrived to look over the hostages.

“Sinwar was with us three to four days after we arrived. I asked him how he is not ashamed to do such a thing to people who have supported peace all these years,” she said, adding that he did not answer.

Separately, Reuters reported Monday that Hamas and fellow Iranian-backed terror organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad refused an Egyptian proposal to give up power in the Gaza Strip in exchange for ending the war.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.