The wife of the architect of the October 7 terror attacks has been dramatically smuggled out of Gaza and is now living a new life in Turkey with a new husband, according to explosive reports from Israel.
Samar Muhammad Abu Zamar, widow of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas military commander who was killed by IDF forces in October 2024, allegedly escaped the war-torn enclave using a fake passport and carrying ‘significant sums of cash’.
Sources in Gaza told Israeli news site Ynet that Abu Zamar remarried in Turkey just months after Sinwar’s death, in a wedding and relocation operation overseen by Hamas political bureau member Fathi Hammad, long linked to smuggling fighters and their families out of the Strip.
The claims come as footage from 2024 resurfaced showing Abu Zamar walking through a Hamas tunnel just hours before the October 7 massacre – carrying what appeared to be a designer handbag.
Although officially unconfirmed, the story has been widely reported in Israel.
An Israeli security official told Ynet that Abu Zamar, along with Najwa Sinwar, the wife of Mohmmed Sinwar – who succeeded his brother as Hamas chief after his death – both crossed into Egypt through the Rafah crossing using forged documents.
‘She’s no longer here – she crossed through the Rafah border using a fake passport,’ a source said of Abu Zamar, saying the escape required ‘high-level coordination, logistical support, and large sums of money that regular Gazans don’t have’.
The revelations have sparked fresh outrage among ordinary Palestinians, many of whom remain trapped in Gaza after 19 months of relentless war, while the families of senior Hamas figures reportedly live in comfort abroad.
Abu Zamar’s former husband, Yahya Sinwar, was assassinated in October last year after being hunted by intelligence services and the Israeli Defence Forces for over a year
‘They send their children to study in Turkey and Qatar – and send ours to the grave,’ one Gazan civilian said. ‘What makes them different from any corrupt ruler in the Arab world? They only look after themselves’.
Hamas, which styles itself as the vanguard of Palestinian resistance, has long been accused of exploiting the suffering of its own people while sheltering its leadership and their families overseas.
The Islamist group’s military network has been shattered since the October 7 attacks, with only one senior commander, Izz al-Din al-Haddad, believed to still be alive.
Abu Zamar’s former husband, Yahya Sinwar, was assassinated in October last year after being hunted by intelligence services and the Israeli Defence Forces for over a year.
Ultimately, his assassination was seemingly by chance, with the group of trainee soldiers responsible for the Hamas chief’s death not knowing his true identity at the time, according to reports.
Israeli officials have said the 61-year-old – who has long been dubbed the Butcher of Khan Younis – was killed after he emerged from the underground tunnel network where he had been hiding.
A unit from the IDF’s 828th Bislamach Brigade was patrolling Tal al-Sultan, an area of Rafah, when it came across a group of three Hamas fighters in the street and engaged them in a firefight.
The terrorists were ‘on the run’ moving from house to house, the IDF said, and became split up.
One of them, since identified as Sinwar, ‘ran alone into one of the buildings’. He went up to the second floor, and troops responded by firing a tank shell in his direction.
The unit, made up of trainee infantry commanders and reservists, then began to sweep the area, according to Israeli reports from the time.
Two grenades were thrown at them, one of which exploded while the other failed to go off.
The troops decided it was too dangerous to proceed and pulled back, sending in a mini drone to trace the fleeing fighter instead.
Dramatic footage released by the IDF showed the bloodied Sinwar, his face concealed by a scarf, throwing a stick in a final attempt to defend himself against the drone just seconds before he was assassinated.
Two 120mm tank shells slammed into the building, as well as a surface-to-surface Matador missile, with shrapnel scything across the upper floors and killing Sinwar.
Unaware they had taken out Israel’s prime target, the soldiers did not return to the site until the following morning, when soldiers from the 450th Infantry Battalion were sent in to get a closer look.
As they inspected the dead, they realised one bore a striking resemblance to the Hamas leader.
Graphic images emerged of his corpse lying on the rubble surrounded by Israeli soldiers, while close ups showed a catastrophic head wound and multiple injuries.
He was found with a weapon, a flak jacket and 40,000 shekels (£8,250).
‘Yahya Sinouar had a lot of cash and fake passports on him, he was ready to flee,’ Israeli army spokesman Colonel Olivier Rafowicz told French outlet CNEWS.
He claimed that the items Sinwar had on him, which allegedly also included a card from UNRWA, the UN aid for Palestinian refugees, ‘may show that he was ready to flee and leave Gaza and his men behind.’
Booby traps around the area meant the corpse had to be left in place, but part of one of his fingers was removed and sent for testing.
Confirmation of his death took several hours, with multiple tests carried out, and his identity eventually confirmed with dental records and fingerprints.
Four hours after it confirmed it was investigating whether the Hamas leader had been killed, the military issued a simple message on social media: ‘Eliminated: Yahya Sinwar.’
Pictures show Israeli troops carrying a body, believed to be Sinwar’s, out of the destroyed building on a stretcher.
Recently, hostage talks have stalled, reportedly due to the difficulty of even reaching Hamas’s scattered leadership in Gaza.
But despite occasional deadly ambushes on Israeli troops, Hamas is no longer capable of large-scale coordinated operations, analysts have said.