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Hamas kingpin holed up deep below Gaza, surrounded by hostages used as human shields, says expert

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Hamas kingpin holed up deep below Gaza, surrounded by hostages used as human shields, says expert

JERUSALEM – The terrorist mastermind behind Hamas’ massacre of nearly 1,200 people, including over 30 Americans, is believed to be using hostages as human shields to hold off Israeli soldiers seeking to capture him in a tunnel deep below Gaza.

The shocking information about Hamas kingpin Yahya Sinwar was revealed by Gen. Jack Keane, FOX News Channel senior strategic analyst and former U.S. army vice chief of staff, in an interview with Sky News Australia on Thursday.

Hamas terrorist leader Yahya Sinwar speaks to a crowd. (Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

“My sources tell me that Sinwar, who is the number one leader in Gaza of the Hamas organization, has 15-20 hostages protecting him and his family,” Keane said. “That’s why they have these hostages, to guarantee their survival. Israel is absolutely right in putting military pressure on them to force the release of the hostages.”

Keane’s revelation coincides with statements by Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, in an interview with Israeli news outlet Channel 12 on Saturday that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) nearly killed Sinwar. Hanegbi said Sinwar “is living on borrowed time,” and that “he won’t emerge alive from this confrontation.” 

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Israel is offering a $400,000 bounty for the capture of Sinwar. In December, Israel dropped leaflets on Gaza offering rewards for information about the location of Hamas’ top leadership.

Hanegbi said the IDF was close to killing Sinwar over the last few months. “It is apparently hard for [Sinwar] to make a decision [regarding a hostage agreement] that is likely to mean the end of Hamas rule,” noted Hanegbi, who added that “because the minute he gives up on the highly significant card for his survival, our hostages, it’s not easy for him, and that’s why things are delayed.”

UN, HUMAN RIGHTS, MEDIA GROUPS RELY ON HAMAS DEATH TOLL IN ‘SYSTEMATIC DECEPTION’: EXPERT

Terrorist leader Yahya Sinwar waves during a rally. (Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua via Getty Images)

The citizenship composition of the hostages being used by Sinwar – in violation of international humanitarian law – is unclear. Five Americans are believed to be among the more than 100 hostages held by Hamas. 

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Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and as part of its slaughter of roughly 1,200 people, the terrorist group took over 200 hostages into Gaza. A November hostage deal secured the freedom of more than 100 hostages, mostly women and children, in exchange for Israel’s release of dozens of Palestinian terrorists.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced a military operation into Rafah – the last major city controlled by Hamas and where Sinwar is believed be hiding with his hostages. Israel’s security objective is also to destroy the tunnels between Egypt and Rafah that enable Hamas to smuggle in weapons.

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION SILENT OVER HAMAS’ USE OF GAZA HOSPITAL AS TERROR HQ

Israel is offering a $400,000 bounty for the capture of Yahya Sinwar. (Mohammed Talatene/picture alliance via Getty Images)

The Biden administration has thus far opposed Israel’s war plan to defeat Hamas in Rafah because of concerns of civilian deaths.

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Hamas retains four battalions in Rafah coupled with thousands of terrorist fighters. While the Rafah operation looms, complex negotiations are unfolding in Cairo and may slow the pace of Israel’s efforts to root out Hamas terrorists in the city populated with more than a million Palestinians.

David Wurmser, a former senior adviser for nonproliferation and Middle East strategy for former Vice President Dick Cheney, said about Sinwar’s use of hostages that “the holding of hostages – since he values their lives nil – is nothing more than, say, a soldier taking cover behind a tree or rock when under heavy fire. It is not cowardice, but an intelligent and primordial impulse. He has no more empathy for a hostage than a soldier does for the rock. Indeed, the same with the ‘innocent’ Palestinian civilians.”

UN, HUMAN RIGHTS, MEDIA GROUPS RELY ON HAMAS DEATH TOLL IN ‘SYSTEMATIC DECEPTION’: EXPERT

An Israeli official said the IDF was close to killing Sinwar over the last few months. (Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

“All is part of a very sober and rational strategy. And given the amount he has taken control of Israeli and U.S. policy with hostages and human shields, it’s a very rational strategy,” Wurmser added. “We consider it cruel – but that requires empathy, which he is devoid of, and immoral, but that implies that advancing Islam at all costs is the ultimate morality and the filter for determining whether an action is moral or not.”

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Yaakov Katz, a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute who was a former editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, where he remains a columnist, told Fox News Digital that Sinwar is crafty and ruthless.

“Sinwar has played Israel very smartly since Oct. 7, sometimes seeming as if he understands Israel better than Israel understands itself. He has used the hostages effectively to achieve his goals and has managed to keep himself always a step ahead of the IDF in its efforts to capture or kill him.”

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At least nine killed after Iranian strike on Israel’s Beit Shemesh

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At least nine killed after Iranian strike on Israel’s Beit Shemesh

BREAKING,

The Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency service says that 20 others were injured by the impact.

At least nine people have been killed after an Iranian missile strike on the central Israeli city of Beit Shemesh, as Tehran continued to launch retaliatory attacks a day after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in US-Israeli strikes.

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The Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency service said on Sunday that nine people were killed and 20 other people were injured by the impact, including two in serious condition.

The Israeli military said in a statement that search and rescue teams, and a helicopter to evacuate those injured are currently operating in Beit Shemesh, with the army’s spokesperson adding that the circumstances of the impact from the Iranian ballistic missile are under review.

More to come …

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Sombr Altercation at Brit Awards Was Staged, Rep Confirms

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Sombr Altercation at Brit Awards Was Staged, Rep Confirms

Sombr was mid-performance at the Brit Awards when a random man bumrushed the stage and pushed the singer off the platform, leaving him stunned — only it was all planned, says his rep.

The singer-songwriter, who was nominated for international artist and international song, was at the end of his smash single “Undressed” when a man joined him on the podium and shoved him hard. Security guards aggressively removed the man from the stage, and Sombr returned to the microphone to segue into his next song.

Shortly after the performance came to a close, Sombr’s rep confirmed to Variety that the whole thing was part of the act. Fans were already split online over whether the incident was staged or real. Naysayers noticed that the offender was wearing a shirt that read “Sombr is a homewrecker” — a nod to his latest single “Homewrecker,” which some claimed was a dead giveaway. But others weren’t necessarily convinced it was a stunt, considering how hard he was pushed and how additional security guards came to his rescue.

Brits host Jack Whitehall remarked on the incident after Sombr’s performance concluded. “Such a shame we didn’t have the security ready,” he said.

The incident took place just days after Britain’s BAFTA Awards last Sunday, when John Davidson, the Scottish Tourette’s syndrome activist and real-life inspiration for the film “I Swear,” disrupted that ceremony with an outburst of racial slurs that occurred as “Sinners” stars Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were onstage. “I can’t begin to explain how upset and distraught I have been as the impact from Sunday sinks in,” Davidson told Variety earlier this week.

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Whitehall made a joking reference to that incident — which was not bleeped from the initial BAFTA broadcast and was audible to viewers — at the top of the Brits, saying “We’ve got the best in the business on the bleep button.”

Sombr is coming off a red-hot year that saw his various singles “Undressed,” “Back to Friends” and “12 to 12” impact the charts. He recently performed at the Grammy Awards, where he was nominated for best new artist alongside Addison Rae, Alex Warren, the Marías, Leon Thomas, Lola Young, Katseye and Olivia Dean, who ended up taking home the award.

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Iran goes dark amid ‘regime paranoia’, blackout follows Israeli, US strikes on compound

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Iran goes dark amid ‘regime paranoia’, blackout follows Israeli, US strikes on compound

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Iran was plunged into an internet blackout Saturday after Israel and the U.S. launched military strikes around the country, according to a global internet monitor.

Within hours of the strikes — which officials said targeted infrastructure and killed dozens of senior regime figures at a compound in Tehran— NetBlocks CEO Alp Toker confirmed connectivity started “flatlining.”

“We’re tracking the ongoing blackout, but our assessment is that this is straight out of Iran’s wartime playbook and consistent both technically and strategically with what we saw during the 2025 Twelve-Day War with Israel,” Toker told Fox News Digital.

“Iran’s internet connectivity is now flatlining around the 1% level, so the original blackout the regime imposed during the morning has been consolidated,” he confirmed.

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“The blackout was imposed just after 7:00 UTC, not long after the attack on the Iranian regime compound,” Toker clarified, adding that Iran had been largely offline for approximately 12 hours following the attack.

“At 06:10 UTC, there is the main compound strike; at 07:10 UTC, telecoms disruption starts; at 08:00 UTC, the blackout is largely in effect; and by 08:30 UTC, connectivity flatlines.”

“Wartime national blackouts are exceedingly rare around the world, and it’s something we’ve only really seen at this scale in Iran,” he said.

President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Iran following an Israeli strike in Tehran on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026.  (@WhiteHouse/X)

In the wake of the attack, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that the “heavy and pinpoint” bombing in Iran “will continue uninterrupted throughout the week or as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”

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He claimed Iranian security forces and members of the regime’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were already seeking immunity. He urged them to “peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots.”

“We are hearing that many of their IRGC, Military, and other Security and Police Forces no longer want to fight and are looking for Immunity from us,” Trump said in the post. “As I said last night, ‘Now they can have Immunity; later they only get Death!’”

Toker argued the timing of the blackout suggested it was imposed deliberately as the regime sought to secure communications amid fears of further targeting.

TRUMP TELLS IRANIANS THE ‘HOUR OF YOUR FREEDOM IS AT HAND’ AS US-ISRAEL LAUNCH STRIKES AGAINST IRAN

TEHRAN, IRAN – FEBRUARY 28: Smoke rises over the city center after an Israeli army launches 2nd wave of airstrikes on Iran on February 28, 2026. (Photo by Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images) (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)

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“The Iranian regime will have deployed this new blackout to counter potential cyberattacks during their own military operation, but also to avoid leaking the locations of senior regime figures through metadata and user-generated content,” he said.

“Communications would have been limited, and Iran’s leadership would have proceeded with the assumption that all communications, including satellite or whitelisted networks, carry risks,” he said before claiming that “paranoia would be well grounded at this point, with the blackout a belated but direct response to that.”

“Those participating directly would already know to avoid technology that could betray their whereabouts,” Toker said.

“However, the metadata may well have played a part in determining that the meeting of regime leaders was being held at the Tehran compound, who was in attendance, and at what time.”

DID THEY GET HIM? KHAMENEI’S FATE REMAINS UNKNOWN AFTER ISRAEL-US STRIKE LEVELS HIS COMPOUND

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In this handout image provided by the Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei addresses the nation in a state television broadcast on June 18, 2025 in Tehran, Iran.  (Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran via Getty Images)

Toker revealed that the broader network around the regime leaders and around the compound wouldn’t have had the same strict restrictions.

“This kind of adjacent ‘background noise’ can be correlated against other intelligence sources to build an understanding of activity on the ground,” he added.

“Smartphones are a readily available, almost ‘free’ source of intelligence, and even when locked down, they eventually connect to international online services and generate insights that can be used to pinpoint regime figures,” Toker said.

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“In the aftermath of Saturday’s strike, this concern will have been high on the remaining Iranian leadership’s minds, especially if they didn’t have a clear and specific understanding of how the meeting was compromised.”

Iran has previously imposed sweeping internet shutdowns during periods of domestic unrest, including nationwide protests in January, which saw thousands killed, often seeking to curb the spread of information and restrict coordination.

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