Sinwar through the eyes of occupation interrogators: ‘A man with no fear’

Haaretz published an interview with an interrogator of the Shin Bet security service on Friday, in which he spoke about the interrogations conducted with the leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, during his detention, which lasted more than 23 years.

The interrogator, whose identity the newspaper did not reveal, was charged with interrogating Sinwar when he was arrested for the first time in the late 1980s and says he will not forget the complete indifference with which Sinwar revealed his beliefs.

The interrogator added: “He considered himself to be a leader. He always spoke with his head held high, aggressively, authoritatively. He was not in awe of the interrogator – on the contrary, He was always defiant. I can read you what I wrote about him in the first interrogation. I kept it. ‘Definitely an anomalous figure in his personality, wisdom and level of intelligence. Religiously extreme, a believer, one who is at peace with his words and his deeds.’”

The interrogator also told the newspaper reporter: “He suggested that people endanger their lives and confront the army. People usually respond to such ideas apprehensively and attempt to evade the issue. But with Sinwar, no one declined. Everyone he approached was recruited immediately and agreed to every mission.”

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After his second round of questioning Sinwar, the interrogator wrote: “A Hamas activist in every fibre of his body – a figure of a leader with the personality of a murderer. During interrogation, he was characterised by cleverness and guile, with operative cognitive abilities manifested in his field activity. A logistics person and an amazing organiser and operator in the field.”

“To you, I’ll say that he hates Israel at an extreme level, which was translated in our presence into toxic comments, spoken with a burning hatred. He has no fear. He did not hide his thoughts about his intention to murder Shin Bet personnel. He told me: ‘I will murder you, all your colleagues in the Mukhabarat [Arabic for secret police],’ as he termed Shin Bet. You need to understand what level of psychological warfare he employed already, then, as a detainee. He faces you and curses and threatens and is not afraid,” the interrogator continued.

The interrogator also told the newspaper he had never seen: “Someone who behaves and speaks so boldly isn’t ashamed and doesn’t fear the interrogator, and tells you: ‘You are the criminal, and even if the world turns upside-down, I will deal with heretic Jews like you.’”

Israeli occupation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has confirmed that his forces are besieging Sinwar’s house in Gaza and that his arrest is only a matter of time.

Since 7 October, the Israeli occupation, with the support of the US, has been waging a devastating genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, which has left massive infrastructure destruction and tens of thousands of civilian casualties, most of them children and women, in addition to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, according to official Palestinian and United Nations sources.

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