The fatal blow to the Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, was a gunshot wound to the head, the Israeli autopsy of his body found.

He was earlier hit in the arm during a firefight with Israeli soldiers.

On a routine operation, a unit of commanders in training encountered a group of militants on the streets of Rafah in southern Gaza. They didn’t know at the time that the group included Sinwar.

Two militants fled into one building, while a third, who would later turn out to be Sinwar, entered another, triggering an hours-long firefight, according to the Israeli military.

During the encounter, shrapnel, possibly from either a small missile or tank shell hit Sinwar on his right arm and wounded him, the director of Israel’s national forensic institute, Dr Chen Kugel, who oversaw the autopsy and described its findings in an interview with The New York Times on Friday.

At some point, Sinwar tied an electric cable around his wounded arm, in what appears to be a makeshift tourniquet to staunch the bleeding, Dr Kugel added. “But it wouldn’t have worked in any case,” he said. “It wasn’t strong enough, and his forearm was smashed.”

An Israeli drone that was flown into the building where Sinwar had fled captured what the Israeli military said were the “moments before his elimination”.

The video, edited and released by the military, shows a man sitting in a chair, covered in dust. The man, identified as Sinwar by the military, watches the drone for at least 20 seconds before throwing what appears to be a stick in its direction. The Times could not independently verify the identity of the man. Elements of the video match those of other photographs obtained by The Times showing the corpse of Sinwar.

Sinwar was later shot in the head, killing him, Dr Kugel said. Other points remain unclear, including when the fatal shot was fired, what weapon was used and who fired it.

The following morning, his body was found in the rubble of the building, which had partially collapsed following shelling, according to Israeli officials. Soldiers at the site realised the militant bore a striking resemblance to Sinwar.

The soldiers cut off one of his fingers so that health officials could establish his identity, Dr Kugel said. The body arrived at the national forensic institute on Thursday night for the autopsy.

The institute director said that Sinwar was relatively pale, which would make sense for someone who had spent long stretches of time in Hamas’s underground tunnel network, as is believed.

New York Times News Service