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STORY: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar's speech in Gaza last year was no idle threat. "We will come to you with an endless number of rockets, we will come to you in a flood of soldiers without limit..." It sounded like crowd-pleasing hyperbole. But at this time - a secret plan had already been hatched for an assault on Israel - a country that jailed Sinwar for 23 years before he was freed and rose to the Hamas leadership. October 7 would be the deadliest day in Israel's history, in which the militants killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages, Israeli tallies say. Israel has retaliated with bombardment and a ground invasion, killing at least 15,000 Palestinians. Sinwar spent half his adult life behind bars in Israel. He was jailed in 1988 for planning the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and the murder of four Palestinian collaborators. This was the moment he was freed in 2011, one of more than a thousand Palestinians released for a single Israeli soldier. "This is one of the big strategic events in the history of our people’s cause in the past years. So we are living a moment of unusual joy." Sinwar has been leading negotiations for prisoner swaps with hostages, sources say. And it's a personal issue. He has vowed to free all Palestinian prisoners Israel holds. 2652 Sinwar is a ruthless man, according to Michael Koubi, a former official for Israel's Shin Bet intelligence agency who interrogated him for 180 hours in jail. The now 61-year-old militant leader was then in his late 20s, Koubi says, but dedicated to attacking Israel. "Yahya Sinwar ruled at the prison, he was the chief of all Hamas prisoners. They were sitting together, they make discussions inside the prison of course, and they taught how to give to fight the Israelis you know after they will be released, that was his plan.” Born in the Khan Younis refugee camp, Sinwar rose to prominence as a hardline enforcer. Before jail, he was head of the Al-Majd security apparatus which tracked, killed and punished Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel. Sources who know him - whether Hamas or Israeli - agree his devotion to the militant movement is extraordinary. "He told me the Hamas is my wife, the Hamas is my child, the Hamas for me is everything." Sinwar is one of Israel's most wanted. This was Israeli army chief of staff Herzi Halevi in October. "The one who decided on this despicable attack was Yahya al-Sinwar, the sovereign of the Gaza Strip. Therefore he and the whole system under him, are as good as dead." Regional officials say Israel is unlikely to end the war until Sinwar is dead or captured. Two military experts said that would be an important symbolic victory. But achieving it would be long and costly for Israel, with no guarantee of success. Sinwar, Mohammed Deif - the mastermind of last month's assault - and a third commander direct military operations, possibly from bunkers beneath Gaza, Hamas sources have told Reuters. Some tunnels are believed to be 80 meters underground and Koubi says Sinwar wouldn't give up. "Even he will fight. I'm sure that Yahya Sinwar wouldn’t leave the Gaza Strip. He will stay until the last bullet.”