JERUSALEM/CAIRO:
Hamas
chief Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the Oct 7, 2023 attack that triggered the
Gaza war
, has been killed by
Israeli forces
in the Palestinian enclave,
Israel
said on Thursday. His killing marks a huge success for Israel and a pivotal event in the year-long war — although there are a number of possible scenarios.
The Israeli military said it had killed Sinwar, 62, in an operation in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday.
“After completing the process of identifying the body, it can be confirmed that Yahya Sinwar was eliminated,” it said.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas.
PM Netanyahu on Thursday said Israel had “settled its account” with “the person who carried out the worst massacre in the history of our people since the Holocaust”. Netanyahu said the killing of Sinwar was an “important moment in the war” to bring home the hostages being held in Gaza. He also said anyone who surrendered weapons and assisted with the return of the hostages would be allowed to leave Gaza safely. “To the dear hostage families, I say: We will continue full force until all your loved ones, our loved ones, are home.”
Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz said: “This is a great military and moral achievement for Israel and a victory for the entire free world against the axis of evil of radical Islam led by Iran.” He called Sinwar a “mass murderer who was responsible for the massacre and atrocities of October 7” — the Hamas-led attack last year in which fighters killed 1,200 people in Israel and captured more than 250 hostages that triggered the Gaza war.
Israel’s Army Radio said the killing had occurred during aground operation in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip during which Israeli troops killed three militants and took their bodies. It said visual evidence suggested it was likely that one of the men was Sinwar. The corpse was taken away for DNA tests and checking of dental records — Israel has samples of Sinwar’s DNA from time he spent in an Israeli jail.
Photos circulating online showed the body of a man resembling Sinwar with a gaping head wound, dressed in a military-style vest, half buried in the rubble of a destroyed building. The security official confirmed the photos were taken by Israeli security officials at the scene. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Israeli news site N12 sa id Sinwar appears to have been killed by chance in a battle on Wednesday. It said that troops tracked a group of militants into a building, then attacked the militants with tank fire, causing the building to collapse. As troops unearthed the dead militants, they noticed that one appeared to resemble Sinwar.
In Israel, families of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza said they hoped that a ceasefire could now be reached that would bring home the captives. In Gaza, residents said they believed the war would go on.
Sinwar, who was named as Hamas’ chief following the assassination of political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, was believed to have been hiding in the warren of tunnels Hamas has built under Gaza over the past two decades.
Sinwar’s killing raises hopes of Gaza war end
Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, has long been viewed as one of the militant group’s most influential commanders, wielding outsize power while remaining mostly hidden in tunnels beneath Gaza. Long considered a planner of Hamas’s military strategy in Gaza, Sinwar consolidated his power when he was chosen in Aug to lead the group’s political office as wellafter the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh.
Sinwar’s formative years
Sinwar was born in Gaza in 1962 to a family that had fled its home, along with several hundred thousand other Palestinian Arabs during the wars surrounding the creation of Israel. This displacement deeply influenced his decision to join Hamas in the 1980s. Sinwar was recruited by Hamas’s founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who made him chief of an internal security unit known as Al Majd. His job was to find and punish those suspected of violating Islamic morality laws or cooperating with the Israeli occupiers.
‘Butcher of Khan Younis’
Israel arrested him in the late 1980s and he admitted to killing 12 suspected of collaborating with Israelis, a role that earned him the nickname “The Butcher of Khan Younis.” He was sentenced to four life terms for offences that included the killing of two Israeli soldiers. He spent more than two decades in prison in Israel, where he learned Hebrew and developed an understanding of Israeli culture and society. He also translated into Arabic tens of thousands of pages of contraband Hebrew-language autobiograp hies written by the ex-heads of Israel’s domestic security agency, Shin Bet. Sinwar organised strikes in prison to improve working conditions. He survived brain cancer in 2008 after being treated by Israeli doctors.
Head of Hamas in Gaza
Sinwar was among more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners released in 2011 by PM Netanyahu as part of an exchange for an Israeli soldier captured by
Hamas in a cross-border raid.
When Sinwar returned to Gaza, he quickly rose through Hamas’ leadership ranks with a reputation for ruthlessness. He is widely believed to be behind the 2016 killing of another top Hamas commander, Mahmoud Ishtewi, in an internal power struggle. Sinwar became head of Hamas in Gaza, effectively putting him in control of the territory, and worked with Haniyeh to align the group with Iran and its proxies around the region while also building the group’s military capabilities.
Sinwar, along with Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’ armed wing, is believed to have engineered the Oct 7 attack on Israel. His hard-line stance suggests that he will not be eager to reach a ceasefire agreement.
What does this mean for cease-fire negotiations?
The death of Sinwar would raise hopes of an end to the conflict. Both Sinwar and the Israeli govt had refused to compromise during the negotiations for a truce. His death could either prompt Hamas to agree to some of Israel’s demands — or give Netanyahuwith a symbolic victory that would give him the political cover he needs to soften his own negotiating stance. AGENCIES
