The Hamas terror group in Gaza, which teetered after Israel killed its leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza last fall, is now rebuilding under his younger brother Mohammed, the Wall Street Journal reported.

According to the report, Mohammed Sinwar is rehabilitating the terror group with a new generation of recruits and is using the IDF’s unexploded ordnance scattered throughout the Strip to improvise bombs and use them against IDF soldiers.

“We are in a situation where the pace at which Hamas is rebuilding itself is higher than the pace that the IDF is eradicating them,” said Amir Avivi, a retired Israeli brigadier general. “Mohammed Sinwar is managing everything.”

Mohammed Sinwar, about age 50, was not appointed as the new Hamas leader in place of his brother, with Hamas political figures in Doha forming a collective leadership council instead, but has become the de facto leader, according to  Arab mediators involved in ceasefire talks with Israel. Like his brother, who was over 10 years older than him, he joined Hamas at a young age and was considered close to the head of Hamas’ armed wing, Mohammed Deif.

According to political analysts quoted by the report, with Deif and his deputy and Yahya Sinwar dead, Mohammed Sinwar is now Hamas’ most senior commander in Gaza, along with Izz al-Din Haddad, the military head in northern Gaza.

Sinwar works mainly behind the scenes and has been dubbed “Shadow,” according to Arab officials. Israeli intelligence officials know much less about him than his older brother who spent over 20 years in Israeli prison. Mohammed had a part in his brother’s release [and many others], as according to Israeli officials, he was one of the terrorists responsible for Gilad Shalit’s abduction in 2006.

“We are working hard to find him,” said a senior Israeli official from the IDF’s Southern Command.

Israeli and US officials say that Hamas recruited thousands of new terrorists in the past several months across Gaza but mainly in the northern part of the Strip, where IDF troops are currently involved in intense battles. Arab officials say that Hamas lures recruits with promises of more food, and medical care that the terror group steals from humanitarian aid that Israel allows into the Strip.

“Hamas had a major, major blow, but it’s still there,” said Yoel Guzansky at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies think tank. “They will recruit, rearm.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)