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From the Liveblog of Monday, August 12, 2024

‘The coffee was still hot’: IDF general Goldfus says troops were ‘minutes’ from catching Sinwar in Gaza tunnels

12 August 2024, 6:03 pm 53 Edit

IDF Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfus speaks to Channel 12 in an interview aired August 11, 2024. (Screenshot, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

The outgoing head of the IDF’s 98th Division says he and his troops were “minutes” from catching Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar in the tunnels of Gaza earlier this year.

Asked in a lengthy Channel 12 interview screened last night how close he came to catching the architect of Hamas’s October 7 invasion and slaughter in Israel, Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfus replies: “We were close. We were in his compound. We got to an underground compound. It was ‘hot.'”

Hamas’s Gaza Strip leader Yahya Sinwar in a tunnel in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, October 10, 2023 (IDF Spokesman)

What does that mean? he is asked.

“We found a lot of money there. The coffee was still hot. Weapons strewn around.”

So it was minutes after he’d left?

Goldfus: “Minutes, really.”

Goldfus has been appointed the next head of the Northern Corps and Multi-Domain Joint Maneuver Array, and will soon be promoted to the rank of major general.