NEW YORK, December 16. /TASS/. Israel is surprised at how many Hamas militants are surrendering to Israeli troops, US investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh wrote on his Substack blog, citing sources.

"The biggest surprise has been the number of Hamas fighters in the south who have chosen to surrender to Israeli troops. An American official with access to sensitive information said as many as seven hundred Hamas soldiers <…> chose to surrender, in lieu of being shot, in the past week or so," he wrote.

According to the official cited by the journalist, Israel did not expect this, expecting "Hamas to fight to the end." Among those who have surrendered was senior aide to Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinjar, who was one of the masterminds of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. "Sinjar’s aide, whose name I could not learn, was said to be in charge of communications for Hamas," Hersh added.