Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza and one of the masterminds of the October 7 massacre, boasted that the murder of over 1,200 people in southern Israel and the taking of 240 hostages was "just a rehearsal."
“The leaders of the occupation should know, October 7 was just a rehearsal,” Sinwar threatened in his first public address since the massacre today (Thursday), Maariv reported.'
On Monday, Israeli journalist Amit Segal reported that Sinwar met with a number of hostages in the first days of the war.
One of the female hostages who was freed over the last week said: "He spoke fluent Hebrew to the captives, saying 'Hello, I am Yahya Sinwar. You are safest here. Nothing will happen to you."
85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz, who was released from captivity in Gaza about a month ago, also revealed that while she was in captivity, she met Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and admonished him.
"Sinwar was with us three or four days after we arrived," Lifshitz recalled in an interview with the Davar website. "I asked him how he was not ashamed to do such a thing to people who, for all these years, supported peace. He didn't answer. He was silent."
This is not the first time senior Hamas officials have vowed to repeat the atrocities of October 7.
In a video published a month ago on X, formerly Twitter, Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad said: "We will repeat the October 7 attack time and again until Israel is annihilated."
He also claimed, "We are victims - everything we do is justified."