Israel confirmed on Thursday that it had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, after a year-long effort to hunt down the mastermind of the deadly October 7 massacre.

According to reports, the IDF was close to killing Sinwar on multiple occasions, including last month, when the terror leader ordered the execution of six Israeli hostages to allow himself to move quicker around Gaza.

The Israeli military released drone footage which it says shows the terror chief’s final moments, depicting a man sitting alone on an upstairs floor of a ruined residential building in the Tel Sultan neighbourhood of Rafah, in southern Gaza.

The footage shows Sinwar covered in dust, hunched-over on a chair with his face shielded by a Keffiyeh, his right-arm apparently severely wounded. As the drone swoops into shell-damaged room in Southern Gaza, he watches it for about 20 seconds, before throwing a stick at it in a final act of desperation.

After the clip ends, an additional shell fired by the IDF caused the apartment building to collapse, and Sinwar was killed.

When the footage was initially taken, the man was only identified as a militant, according to Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari. But when the body was approached by troops, it was found with a bulletproof vest, grenades, and 40,000 shekels (£8,000).

An additional shell fired by the IDF caused the apartment building to collapse, Sinwar was killed.

He was one of three other Hamas militants who were eliminated by IDF troops on Wednesday. Their bodies were found by drones and then troops the following day and transported to Israel for DNA tests and dental record checking.

Foreign minister Israel Katz said on Thursday that the checks concluded that the body found in the rubble matched Sinwar’s dental records, which Israel held due to the terror chief having spent 22 years in Israeli prison. Katz called his elimination a “great military and moral achievement for Israel”.

Unlike other senior terror leaders who were deliberately tracked down and eliminated by Israel, such as Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif who was killed following an airstrike on July 13, Sinwar’s death was not the result of a planned or targeted strike.

The operation was not carried out by elite commandos and was not the result of astute intelligence gathering. Sinwar was killed “by chance”, according to Kan Radio.

He was found by trainee commander soldiers from the Bislach Brigade, who were searching an area in the Tel Sultan region of southern Gaza on Wednesday, where they suspected senior figures of Hamas were located.

The troops opened fire when they saw three suspected fighters moving between buildings, leading to a gunfight during which Sinwar fled into a ruined apartment, which was then targeted with tank shells and a missile.

"He tried to escape and our forces eliminated him," Hagari told reporters in a televised briefing.

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar holds the child of an Al-Qassam Brigades fighter (Getty Images)

Describing the drone footage, he said: “Sinwar fled alone into one of the buildings. Our forces used a drone to scan the area”

“Sinwar, who was injured in his hand by gunfire, can be seen here with his face covered, in his final moments, throwing a wooden plank at the drone.”

Earlier yesterday, photographs circulated online showing the corpse of a man resembling Sinwar, lying in rubble with a gaping head wound, dressed in military-style vest.

Other photos of Sinwar’s belongings show that he was in possession of a passport belonging to an UNRWA teacher, who has apparently been in Egypt for the past few months, according to Israeli broadcaster Kan’s Palestinian affairs reporter.

Israel’s pursuit of the October 7 architect over the past year led him "to act like a fugitive, causing him to change locations multiple times", said the head of Israel's military, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi.

"The dozens of operations carried out by the IDF and the ISA over the last year, and in recent weeks in the area where he was eliminated, restricted Yahya Sinwar’s operational movement as he was pursued by the forces and led to his elimination," the Israeli military said in a statement.

Officials had originally thought Sinwar was hiding in one of the underground tunnels beneath Gaza, and that he was using some of the 101 Israeli and foreign hostages as a human shield.