One of the two bodyguards found dead alongside Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on Wednesday was an employee of the United Nations, according to a report Thursday.
Update: A passport found on Sinwar’s body was confirmed to have been that of a United Nations employee. According to the Times of Israel, Sinwar appeared to have been carrying the fake passport in an attempt to flee Gaza.)
As Breitbart News reported, Sinwar’s death was confirmed Thursday after infantry and armored troops engaged three terrorists hiding in a building in southern Gaza, in Rafah, near the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border.
He was found with two other terrorists. One of them was a senior commander of Hamas terrorists in the Khan Yunis area. The other, according to Israeli news website Ynet, was a teacher employed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
Ynet reported:
IDF forces discovered large amounts of Israeli cash and identifying documents on the terrorists’ bodies. Due to the presence of explosives and grenades, drones were initially used to examine the bodies.
One of the terrorists bore a strong resemblance to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, leading troops to believe they may have killed him unintentionally, without prior intelligence. The exact location of the raid remains undisclosed for security reasons.
…
Further evidence suggesting Sinwar’s death included the presence of a senior Hamas commander known to frequently accompany him. Reports from Gaza indicated the other two terrorists killed were Sinwar’s bodyguards, one of whom worked as a teacher for UNRWA and the other a high-ranking official in Hamas’ National Security Office.
UNRWA has been implicated in ideological support for terror, and several of its employees participated in the October 7 terror attacks. President Donald Trump canceled U.S. funding for UNRWA, but President Joe Biden restored it, before suspending it in the wake of the October 7 attacks.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin urged Israel to continue working with UNRWA in the Gaza Strip in a letter threatening an arms embargo if Israel did not comply within 30 days with that demand, among others, dictated by the Biden-Harris administration.
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 Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.