Click on photo to enlarge

BODY OF YAHYA SINWAR

TIMES OF ISRAEL Oct 17/24

Yahya Sinwar: Radical Islamist ideologue utterly committed to Israel’s destruction

An early member of Hamas, he was initially known for his brutal treatment of suspected collaborators and rose in the ranks to lead the group and orchestrate the Oct. 7 slaughter

Israeli officials expressed growing certainty Thursday afternoon that a terror operative killed in exchanges of fire with Israeli forces in Gaza in the past day was Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, on the run since the devastating October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.

Sinwar, the mastermind behind the Oct. 7 massacres, had been in hiding in Gaza for the past year, defying Israeli attempts to kill him since the start of the war.

He was seen as Israel’s top target since the murderous attack that constituted the deadliest day in Israel’s history.

Sinwar was announced as the new leader of Hamas in early August following the assassination of former leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which was ascribed to Israel. Sinwar, who spent half his adult life in Israeli prisons, was the most powerful Hamas leader left alive following the assassination of Haniyeh.

Sinwar was born in 1962 in a refugee camp in the Gaza town of Khan Younis. He was an early member of Hamas, which was formed in 1987, adopting the group’s radical Islamist ideology, which seeks to eliminate Israel and establish an Islamic state in its place.

He eventually led the group’s security arm, which worked to purge it of spies for Israel.

Israel arrested him in the late 1980s and he admitted to killing 12 suspected collaborators, a role that earned him the nickname “The Butcher of Khan Younis.” He was sentenced to four life terms for offenses that included the killing of two Israeli soldiers.

Sinwar organized strikes in prison to improve working conditions. He also studied Hebrew and Israeli society and was seen as having a deep understanding of it.

Sinwar was released from prison in 2011 by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu along with some 1,000 other prisoners, as part of an exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Hamas in a 2006 cross-border raid.

Sinwar was unrepentant about the Oct. 7 attacks after a year of war, people in contact with him said, despite unleashing an Israeli invasion in Gaza and a war that killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, laid waste to his Gaza homeland and rained destruction on ally Hezbollah.

For Sinwar, “armed struggle” remained the only way to force the creation of a Palestinian nation, four Palestinian officials and two sources from governments in the Middle East said.

Sinwar’s grip on Hamas remained unwavering after a year of war, despite some signs of dissent among Gazans.

Dubbed “The Face of Evil” by Israel, Sinwar operated in secrecy, moving constantly and using trusted messengers for non-digital communication, according to three Hamas officials and one regional official.

Over months of failed ceasefire talks led by Qatar and Egypt, that focused on swapping prisoners for hostages, Sinwar was the sole decision-maker, three Hamas sources said. Negotiators would wait for days for responses filtered through a secretive chain of messengers.

Hamas’s ideology views Israel not only as a political rival but as an occupying force on Muslim land. Seen in this light, hardships and suffering were often interpreted by Sinwar and his followers as part of a larger Islamic belief of sacrifice, experts on Islamic movements say.

Before the war, Sinwar would sometimes tell of his early life in Gaza during decades of Israeli control of the Strip, once saying his mother made clothes from empty UN food-aid sacks, according to Gaza resident Wissam Ibrahim, who has met him.

In a semi-autobiographical novel written in prison, Sinwar described scenes of troops bulldozing Palestinian houses, “like a monster crushing its prey’s bones.”

His understanding of the everyday hardships in Gaza was well-received by Gazans and made people feel at ease, four journalists and three Hamas officials said, despite his fearsome reputation and explosive anger.

Sinwar was regarded by Arab and Palestinian officials as the architect of Hamas’s strategy and military capabilities, bolstered through his strong ties with Iran, which he visited in 2012.

Nabih Awadah, a former Lebanese Communist militant who was imprisoned with Sinwar in Ashkelon between 1991-95, said the Hamas leader viewed the 1993 Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority as “disastrous” and a ruse by Israel, which he said would only relinquish Palestinian land “by force, not by negotiations.”

Calling him “willful and dogmatic,” Awadah said Sinwar would light up with joy whenever he heard of attacks against Israelis by Hamas or Lebanon’s Hezbollah group. For him, military confrontation was the only path “to liberating Palestine” from Israeli occupation.

Awadah said Sinwar was an “influential model to all prisoners, even those who were not Islamists or religious.”

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but under Sinwar Hamas focused immense manpower and monetary efforts on turning the Strip into a base of operations from which to work to destroy the Jewish state, building a massive network of underground tunnels, weapons caches and rockets from which to wage war.

Before orchestrating the Oct. 7 raids Sinwar made no secret of his desire to strike his enemy hard. In a speech the year before, he vowed to send a flood of fighters and rockets to Israel, hinting at a war that would either unite the world to establish a Palestinian state on land Israel captures in 1967, or leave the Jewish nation isolated on the global stage.

By the time of the speech, Sinwar and Hamas military chief Muhammad Deif (who was eliminated by Israel in July 2024) had already hatched secret plans for the assault. They were even running training drills in public that simulated such an attack.

His goals have not been fulfilled. While the issue is once again at the top of the global agenda, the prospect of a Palestinian nation is as distant as ever.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has categorically rejected a post-war plan for Gaza that would include a firm timeline for the establishment of a Palestinian state, saying any such talk now would be a reward for terror.

Michael Koubi, a former official with Israel’s Shin Bet security agency who interrogated Sinwar for 180 hours in prison, said Sinwar clearly stood out for his ability to intimidate and command.

Koubi once asked the terrorist, then aged 28 or 29, why he was not already married. “He told me Hamas is my wife, Hamas is my child. Hamas for me is everything.” Sinwar married after his release from prison in 2011 and had three children.