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A Gazan man says Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in his evacuated home

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A Gazan man says Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in his evacuated home

image source, Getty Images

Image Caption, Yahya Sinwar, pictured in June 2021, was killed by Israeli forces on October 16

  • Author, Ali Abbas Ahmadi
  • role, BBC News

A Palestinian in Gaza has told the BBC that the house where former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed was his home for 15 years before he had to flee in May.

Ashraf Abo Taha said he was “shocked” when he identified the partially destroyed building in footage of the Israeli drone incident as his home on Rafah’s Ibn Sena Street in southern Gaza.

Sinwar, the key figure in the October 7 attacks on Israel, was killed by Israeli troops on Wednesday.

The Israeli military released drone footage it said showed Sinwar in a partially destroyed house before he was killed.

video subtitle, BBC Verify analyzes footage of the assassination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar

Abo Taha told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Lifeline that he had left his home in Rafah for Khan Younis on May 6, when Israel ordered evacuations and launched an operation against Hamas fighters, and had received no news of his house so far.

Mr Abo Taha said his daughter first showed him the images purportedly capturing Sinwar’s final moments on social media, saying they represented his home in Rafah. He didn’t believe her at first, he said, until his brother confirmed the house was indeed his.

“I said ‘yes, this is my house’ and I saw the pictures and here I was surprised,” Abo Taha said.

He said he had no idea why Sinwar was there or how he got there.

“I and my brothers and children never had anything to do with it,” he said.

The BBC has verified that the images and videos provided by Mr Abo Taha of his home match the images of the house where Sinwar was killed.

BBC Verify compared and contrasted images of the home’s window arches, external decorations on doors, shelves and armchairs in the images.

The BBC cannot independently verify that Mr Abo Taha owned the house.

image source, Ashraf Abo Taha

Image Caption, The tiles around the door of the house, according to Mr. Abo Taha, are similar to those in the partially destroyed building where Israeli troops said they killed Yahya Sinwar.

Footage of Sinwar’s murder was analyzed by the BBC, and the house where he was last seen was one of the few partially destroyed buildings in a heavily damaged neighborhood.

The Israeli assault on Rafah in May was met with strong international criticism and led to the exodus of more than a million Palestinians, according to the UN.

Many had been forced to move a second or third time, having taken refuge in and around Rafah after being displaced from other parts of Gaza.

Mr Abo Taha said he had built his house in Rafah with the help of his brothers. It had cost about 200,000 shekels (£41,400) and was in good condition when it left, he said.

He described the orange sofas in his house and an orange pan, recalling the last time he saw them while running away from his house.

“They are souvenirs because some of them were brought by my mother and they are very precious to me,” he said.

“What happened has made me very sad, the house I built and all my payments are gone,” he said. “Only God can compensate us.”

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