Lt. Col. Ran, the commander of the ground force that eliminated October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, was interviewed on Shlomi Adler’s 'All in' podcast, where he revealed details of the operation and his personal feelings during the moments of identification and the killing of the Hamas leader.
“I was awake all night," Ran recounted. “I kept telling myself, you’re imagining it. Don’t try to connect the dots. I gathered the company commanders, showed them yesterday’s drone image, and said: tell me, who does this look like?"
According to him, after locating the suspicious building, the force went up into the house, carried out a search, and identified Sinwar. “We’re standing over the body, smiling at each other, and saying: ‘Wow, this is Sinwar.’ It’s an insane closing of the circle."
He described the emotions involved: “This is the architect, this is the scoundrel, this arch-terrorist-this is the one who caused me, as a battalion commander, to lose so many fighters, who caused so much loss to the IDF, kidnapped people, and committed horrific atrocities against our people. This is him."
Lt. Col. Ran emphasized that the operation was not carried out by naval commandos or the air force, but by infantry soldiers and tank crews operating on the ground. “The one who killed him wasn’t an air force bomb, not a special operation, not Shayetet 13. No-it was infantrymen, it was tank crews, fighters who day in and day out throughout this war worked the hardest, and here-we succeeded."