Nobody likes Hamas's Yahya Sinwar in Gaza: Ex-Minister tells Israeli intelligence

Tel Aviv, Dec 11 (IANS) Yosef Almansi, a former Communications Minister in the Gaza Strip, told Israel's Shin Bet intelligence agency that senior Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is hugely unpopular in the besieged enclave and that nobody liked him.

Almansi made the remarks while being interrogated by Shin Bet officials.

Sinwar "has delusions of grandeur", he was quoted as saying in a statement released by the agency on Sunday

"He feels like he is above everyone else... I have not seen anybody in the Gaza Strip who supports Sinwar," the former Minister told the Shin Bet interrogators.

"Nobody likes Sinwar. There are people who, day and night, pray that God will free us from him."

Almansi went on to say that "the achievements of Hamas are the killing and destruction of more than 60 per cent of the buildings, infrastructure, streets, and public facilities" in the Gaza Strip.

"This is a group of lunatics that Sinwar leads. They destroyed the Gaza Strip. They set it back 200 years," he added.

The leader of the militant group within the Gaza Strip, Sinwar is the founder of the Hamas security service known as Majd, which manages internal security matters, investigates suspected Israeli agents and tracks down Israeli intelligence and security services officers.

He has been arrested three times.

After his third arrest in 1988, he was sentenced to four life terms in prison.

However, along with 1,027 Palestinian and Israeli Arab prisoners, he was released by Israel in exchange for an Israeli soldier held captive for over five years by the Hamas.

Sinwar returned to his position as a prominent leader in Hamas and was appointed head of the group's political bureau in the Gaza Strip in 2017.

In 2015, the US included Sinwar on its blacklist of "international terrorists".