Watch: Moment Israeli tank fires at Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar

Footage of an Israeli tank shelling the building where Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed has been released by the Israeli military.
The tank struck the building in the Rafah area of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday before Sinwar’s body was later found in the rubble.
In the video, the tank fires at the side of the building at short range before smoke and debris are blown from its windows. 
According to the Israeli military, Sinwar had been forced out of the tunnel where he was hiding and into the building as they gradually closed off streets and blew up tunnels in the area.
Israeli troops pushed him to “make this mistake” and “move like a fugitive”, Major Doron Spielman explained earlier on Friday.
“He left the tunnel, went into an apartment building, and [Hamas] opened fire on Israeli troops. A tank returned fire, and he was killed in that attack,” he said.
Thank you for following our live coverage of the conflict in the Middle East. It has now ended. 
We’ll be back soon with more updates and analysis. In the meantime, here are today’s headlines:
Joe Biden has suggested he is aware of how Israel will retaliate against Iran for its mass ballistic missile barrage of the Jewish state on October 1. 
Asked whether he had a good understanding of how and when Israel would respond to the attack, Mr Biden said: “Yes and yes.”
The US president was answering questions from reporters after meeting with the leaders of Germany, France and the United Kingdom in Berlin on Friday. 
US media reported earlier this month that the US had grown increasingly mistrustful of the Israeli government after Israel had allegedly failed to inform Washington of its military plans in advance. 
Israel has vowed to respond to Iran’s missile attack, with defence minister Yoav Gallant saying its retaliation would be “lethal, precise and surprising”. 
With Yahya Sinwar gone, Hamas now has to appoint a new leader of Gaza and a new political leader because the assassinated Oct 7 mastermind held both positions.
The religious Shura council will handle the appointments, which could be a long process as most of the senior leadership has been killed.
But at least two of the likely candidates reside in Qatar, a key US ally. Joe Biden will likely come under pressure to pursue the extradition of the leaders in the coming days, while Hamas is expected to seek assurance from Doha that they will be allowed to remain.
In the full story, which you can read here, Jotam Confino details the key figures believed to be in the running to replace Sinwar. 
Khalil al-Hayya, the deputy leader of Hamas’ politburo, said that Hamas will not return Israeli hostages until “the aggression on our people in Gaza is stopped” in a video address broadcast on Friday. 
He also paid tribute to slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, saying his martyrdom will give “our resistance” strength. 
Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has called for the “strengthening” of the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon as she again condemned Israeli strikes on UN troops in the country. 
“Only by strengthening Unifil [the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon] while maintaining its impartiality, we will be able to turn the page,” Ms Meloni said at a joint press conference in Beirut with Najib Mikati, the Lebanese prime minister.
“I repeat that I consider targeting Unifil unacceptable,” she added, referring to several incidents of Israeli troops firing on UN peacekeepers in recent weeks. 
Ms Meloni arrived in Lebanon for a visit on Friday after telling the Italian Senate on Tuesday that Israel’s attacks on UN forces were a “blatant violation” of a UN resolution on ending fighting between Hezbollah and Israel. 
Italy has around 1,000 troops in Lebanon as part of the UN’s peacekeeping force. 
Sir Keir Starmer has said that “no one should mourn the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar”. 
“On his hands is the blood of innocent Israelis, killed on the 7th of October and over years of terror. And also the blood of the Palestinian people, who suffered in the chaos and violence that he sought and celebrated,” the Prime Minister said at a press conference in Berlin. 
“We continue to support Israel’s right to self-defence in the face of the attacks by the Iranian regime,” he added. 
He went on to say he would keep working with allies to de-escalate across the Middle East because “there is no military-only solution”. 
“The answer is diplomacy,” Sir Keir said. 
The Prime Minister also reiterated demands for a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza and a “return to the path” towards a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. 
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has said that five of its soldiers were wounded fighting in Gaza and Lebanon on Thursday and Friday. 
Three soldiers were wounded in a friendly fire incident in southern Lebanon on Thursday, the IDF said, adding that they were mistakenly hit by an Israeli tank shell. It said it was investigating the incident. 
In a separate incident, a reservist officer was wounded fighting on the Israel-Lebanon border, the IDF said. 
A soldier from the Givati Brigade was seriously wounded in northern Gaza on Friday morning, the military added. 
Israel’s army chief has said that Israel has killed 1,500 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon. 
“We estimate that there are around 1,500 eliminated Hezbollah operatives, and we are making reserved estimates, I assume there are more,” Herzi Halevi told commanders of the Israeli military’s Golani Brigade while on a field tour in south Lebanon. 
He did not specify if this figure included Hezbollah fighters killed in cross-border clashes before Israel stepped up its campaign against the group in September. 
Mr Halevi added that Hezbollah fighters were surrendering and that this “said something about… their self confidence”. 
We earlier reported that Israel killed two “terrorists” who had crossed into Israel from Jordan (see our post at 10.13am). 
The Muslim Brotherhood has since claimed the two killed as members of their group. 
The attackers were “members of the group and always participated in events in solidarity with Gaza and in support of the resistance”, a spokesman for the Islamist group said. It named the two attackers as Hussam Abu Ghazaleh and Amer Qawoos.
The two were killed in a shoot-out with Israeli troops shortly after crossing the Jordan-Israel border south of the Dead Sea, Israel’s military said, adding that two Israeli soldiers were wounded in the incident and that it was searching for the area “due to the suspicion of the presence of an additional terrorist”. 
The Muslim Brotherhood is a Sunni Islamist group founded in Egypt in the 1920s. Its stated aim is the establishment of an Islamic state under Sharia law. Palestinian terror group Hamas was founded as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s
Hezbollah said it launched attack drones at troops stationed in the north Israeli town of Safed on Friday, in response to Israeli strikes on its strongholds in south Lebanon.
The Iran-backed group said it launched an attack “with a squadron of attack drones on gatherings of enemy soldiers in the occupied city of Safed,” in response to attacks on villages in south Lebanon, where Hezbollah holds sway.
Footage has been released by the Israeli army of a tank shelling the building where clashes with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar occurred on October 16.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Friday that at least 42,500 people have been killed in the war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 62 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 99,546 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
Muhammed Sinwar, brother of Yahya Sinwar, has been recorded in a Hamas tunnel in Gaza.
Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, met with President Joe Biden earlier today.
Mr Biden gave a brief statement after Mr Scholz, hailing Germany’s decision to spend two per cent of annual GDP on defence. “Please keep it up because it matters,” he said. 
On the Middle East, he added: “The death of the leader of Hamas [Yahya Sinwar] represents a moment of justice, he has the blood of Americans, Israelis, Palestinians and Germans and so many others on his hands. 
“Let’s make this moment an opportunity to seek a path to peace, a better future in Gaza without Hamas.”
He also thanked Mr Scholz for his friendship, both personally and as a means of maintaining stability in Europe with a close US-German relationship. 
The United States called on Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah to seize opportunities for change following the killing of Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Friday.
“We’ll see how things evolve,” Mr Austin said, when asked about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vow to keep fighting.
“But clearly there are opportunities for a change in direction, and we would hope that, you know, parties would would take advantage of that, both in Lebanon, in Gaza and in Lebanon.”
Mr Austin also said that US Forces in the Middle East stood ready to support Israel’s defence.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) will send another brigade of troops to its northern border to aid in the fight against Hezbollah, it announced on Friday.
It did not say if the troops would be deployed across the border in Lebanon, but that it would “enable the continuation of combat efforts against the Hezbollah terrorist organisation”. 
The IDF currently has four divisions deployed in Lebanon: the 36th, the 91st, the 98th and the 146th. 
A brigade is a smaller formation than a division and is usually made up of 600 to a few thousand troops. A division is made up of several brigades. 
Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, has delivered a brief press statement after his meeting with President Joe Biden. 
“Your leadership is to be credited with Putin’s plan failing, that the Ukrainans were not overrun in a few days,” Mr Scholz told Mr Biden. 
He said Germany would support Ukraine as strongly as possible, but not to the extent that Germany becomes a “kriegspartei,” or party to the war, a long-running red line for Mr Scholz. 
On the Middle East crisis, he also stressed that Israelis in the north of the country deserve to live in peace, and that Israel had the right to defend itself. 
Israeli troops have been photographed continuing raids in southern Lebanon.
The United Nations humanitarian office on Friday denounced Israel’s use of what it described as “war-like” tactics against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, saying nine Palestinians had been killed there in a week.
OCHA also voiced concern about Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians and olive trees during the annual October-November harvest, saying it was affecting the economic lifeline of tens of thousands of Palestinian families.
“Israeli forces have been using lethal, war-like tactics in the West Bank, raising serious concerns over excessive use of force and deepening people’s humanitarian needs,” OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke told reporters at a Geneva press briefing.
Mr Laerke added that Israeli forces had accused most of those killed of being involved in attacking Israelis.
He also said there had been dozens of Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians during the olive harvest this month. OCHA has received reports that a Palestinian woman was killed while harvesting olives in Jenin, he added.
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, delivered a rare rebuke to Iran on Friday, requesting Tehran’s envoy be summoned over remarks by a senior Iranian official indicating Iran’s readiness to “negotiate” the implementation of a UN resolution related to Lebanon.
Criticism of Iran by top Lebanese leaders is uncommon, especially given Tehran’s backing of Hezbollah, which is engaged in clashes with Israeli forces along the southern border.
In an interview with France’s Le Figaro published on Thursday, Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf was quoted as saying Iran would be ready to “negotiate” with France to implement UN Resolution 1701. 
That resolution, which ended the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, calls for southern Lebanon to remain free of any forces or weapons outside the control of the Lebanese state.
Mikati expressed his surprise at Ghalibaf’s comments, calling them “a blatant interference in Lebanese affairs and an attempt to impose an unacceptable guardianship over Lebanon”.
President Joe Biden is in Germany today for a meeting with Olaf Scholz, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French leader Emmanuel Macron.
Mr Biden is meeting with German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier this morning. He will then hold a European Quad meeting with Mr Scholz, Mr Macron and Mr Starmer. 
The main topics of that meeting are understood to be the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Last week, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky undertook a European tour, where he presented his “victory plan” in London, Rome and Paris. 
Mr Biden had been due to take part in a larger scale state visit to Germany, followed by a meeting at the Ramstein air base to discuss Ukraine with European leaders. 
That visit was postponed as the President had to remain in the United States last week to tackle a major hurricane in Florida. 
Israeli have rejoiced with flags and danced in the street after Yahya Sinwar’s killing.
 
The Israeli military identified what it called “a number of terrorists” crossing from Jordan into the south of the Dead Sea region and neutralized two of them after they opened fire on Israeli forces, it said in a statement on Friday.
Additional forces have been dispatched to reinforce the area and were conducting searches on the ground and air for an additional suspect who likely fled the scene, the military added.
The Israeli foreign minister has hit out at the UN for not welcoming the killing of Yahya Sinwar.
Israel Katz wrote on X that UN chief António Guterres was “leading an extreme anti-Israel and anti-Jewish agenda”.
“Guterres did not welcome the elimination of arch-terrorist Yahya Sinwar, just as he refused to declare Hamas a terrorist organisation after the October 7th massacre,” he said. 
“We will continue to designate him as persona non grata and bar his entry to Israel.”
Earlier this month, Mr Katz said that he barred Guterres from entering Israel after ongoing tensions over the UN’s position on Israel’s actions in Gaza.
An estimated 150 attacks were launched by Israel into Gaza and Lebanon on Thursday, according to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). 
The strikes hit munitions warehouses, rocket launch sites and sniper and observation posts. 
A siege continued against Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the territory, with “the combat team” of Israel’s Givati Brigade joined forces with Division 162. 
The IDF added that attacks by the air force in the area had “eliminated dozens of terrorists”.
Celebrations erupted across Israel overnight following the killing of Yahya Sinwar. 
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hold a special security meeting at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv today, alongside government ministers and security officials, according to reports. 
The meeting will focus on potential progress in negotiations for a hostage deal in light of Yahya Sinwar’s death, the reports indicate, according to Hebrew media. 
Yahya Sinwar threw a stick at an Israeli drone in an apparent act of desperation moments before he was killed. 
The Hamas leader was tracked by an Israeli mini drone as he lay dying in the ruins of a building in southern Gaza.
He was filmed covered in dust as slumped in a chair, according to footage released by Israel. 
According to the Jerusalem Post, Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari told reporters: “Sinwar fled alone into one of the buildings. Our forces used a drone to scan the area, which you can see here in the footage I’m presenting.”
“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,” he added.
“He tried to escape and our forces eliminated him.”
Iran’s mission to the United Nations said Thursday the killing of Yahya Sinwar would lead to the strengthening of “resistance” in the region, hours after Israel said it had killed the Hamas chief.
“The spirit of resistance will be strengthened. He will become a model for the youth and children who will carry forward his path toward the liberation of Palestine,” the mission said in a post on X. 
“As long as occupation and aggression exist, resistance will endure, for the martyr remains alive and a source of inspiration.”
US President Joe Biden and European leaders meeting during his farewell visit to Germany on Friday were expected to renew calls for a Gaza ceasefire after Israel said it killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
While still on Air Force One, Mr Biden hailed the death of the man Israel blames for the October 7 attack as a “good day”, saying it removed a key obstacle to a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal.
Mr Biden and the German, British and French leaders were also set to pledge their sustained military support for Ukraine as it fights off Russia’s invasion.