What To Know About Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar—As Israel Confirms Death

17 Oct 2024 by Brian Bushard · Forbes

Topline

Israel said Thursday it killed Yahya Sinwar, the recently named head of Hamas’ political bureau and the person the U.S. and Israel believe orchestrated the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel last year—marking a major turning point in the year-long war between Israel and Hamas.

Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas, has been called a "dead man walking" by Israeli officials.SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Key Facts

The Israeli Defense Forces and the Israel Security Agency said Thursday they were “checking the possibility” that 62-year-old Sinwar was among three militants killed during IDF operations in Gaza, and hours later the IDF confirmed Sinwar had been “eliminated.”

CNN reported that senior Biden administration officials have long seen Sinwar’s death as “the biggest potential game-changer,” believing that if Sinwar was killed, Israel may end its conflict with Hamas.

Sinwar was named the head of Hamas’ political bureau one week after another top political leader for Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in July at a residence in Tehran, Iran, in an assassination Hamas blamed on Israel.

Israeli officials have described Sinwar—who grew up in southern Gaza, joined Hamas in the late 1980s and gained recognition as the founder of the group’s intelligence arm—as the mastermind behind Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

In 1989, Sinwar was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences for abducting and murdering two Israeli soldiers, and served in an Israeli prison—reportedly learning Hebrew there—until his 2011 release, which was part of a massive prisoner swap in which Israeli officials freed more than 1,000 prisoners in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been captured by Hamas.

Since his release from prison, Sinwar has been involved in multiple rounds of fighting against Israel, including an 11-day crisis in May 2021, when Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad launched rockets at Israel and Israel conducted airstrikes in Gaza.

The U.S. State Department designated Sinwar a global terrorist in 2015, and he has also been sanctioned by the U.K. and France.

Prior to being named Hamas’ primary leader, Sinwar was elected Hamas’ Gaza leader in 2017 with a reputation as a hardliner, and was reelected to a second four-year term in 2021, months before another round of Hamas rocket attacks on Israel.

Sinwar was also known as a critic of Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority and its ruling Fatah party—a rival to Hamas that controls the West Bank but not Gaza—and he vowed in 2022 to “give the chance to ignite the resistance in the West Bank.”

Sinwar said in that speech he would come for Israel “God willing, in a roaring flood” and “with endless rockets” and “millions of our people, like the repeating tide,” according to a translation by Reuters.

Contra

Harel Chorev, a senior researcher of Middle Eastern studies at Tel Aviv University, told CNN late last year that while Sinwar is “perceived as the most senior” Hamas official, the group has a “decentralized” structure and Sinwar was actually one of three senior officials who planned the attack and just one of several “power centers” within the terrorist organization.

Key Background

War broke out in the Gaza Strip in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, which left roughly 1,100 people killed, according to Israeli estimates. The Hamas-led Gaza Health Ministry estimates over 41,500 people have died since Oct. 7 in Gaza. After a string of temporary cease-fires just over a month into the war, fighting resumed in the Gaza Strip in December and has not stopped despite the worsening humanitarian conditions in Gaza and growing international calls for a cease-fire. The U.S. has continued to encourage Israel and Hamas to end to the conflict and has warned against potential escalation with Iran, which backs both Hamas and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Earlier this week, the U.S. made one if its most serious rebukes of Israel when two leaders sent a letter to Israeli leaders threatening the U.S. could cut military aid if Israel doesn’t take steps to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza in 30 days.

Surprising Fact

Sinwar had publicly expressed caution in the past over warring with Israel, telling Italian journalist Francesca Borri in 2018 a “new war is in no one’s interest.” He added in that interview Hamas would be open to negotiating with Israel in exchange for Israel and Egypt lifting their blockade of Gaza, which has been in place since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007. As a result, several news outlets have reported Israeli analysts previously believed Hamas leaders—including Sinwar—were not interested in continued fighting, an impression that ended following the Oct. 7 attack, which led to 1,200 deaths in Israel and roughly 240 hostages being taken.

Tangent

Sinwar is the latest leader of Hamas or Lebanon-based Hezbollah to be been killed by Israel. The IDF recently killed Hasan Nasrallah, leader of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group, and Nabil Kaouk, commander of Hezbollah’s preventative security unit. Five other Hezbollah senior leaders were killed in the weeks leading up to Nasrallah and Kaouk’s deaths.