Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas directer who masterminded the 7 October aggression on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza, has been ended by Israeli forces, Israel’s foreign minister has said, ending a year-prolonged hunt.
Katz verifyed tells on Thursday in a statement sent to counterparts around the world. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said almost instantly after Katz’s statement was telled by Israeli media that Sinwar had been “deleted”.
His death recurrents a beginant increase to the Israeli military and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, after a string of high-profile killings of famous directers of its enemies in recent months.
The IDF said on Thursday afternoon it was examineing whether Sinwar was one of three militants ended during a patrol in an unidentified area of Gaza, but that their identities could not yet be verifyed. By Thursday evening, it verifyed he had been “deleted”, telledly in Tel Sultan, a neighbourhood of Gaza’s southernmost town, Rafah, on Wednesday.
The bodies were set up by troops and getn to Israel for DNA and dental sign up testing.
Israel’s Kan Radio telled that the Hamas directer had been ended “by chance”, and not as a result of intelligence collecting. The station also said the bodies were set up with cash and phony IDs.
Graphic photos and video from the scene, widecast on Israeli media, showed what ecombineed to be Sinwar’s body, wearing overweightigues, with a cut offe head injury, lying on a pile of rubble on the floor of a ruined createing.
There was no instant comment from Hamas.
Israel’s Channel 12 telled that an infantry battalion, operating with a tank unit, had identified a group of men running into a createing. The forces discmissed fire using tank shells, and the bodies were buried under the rubble.
It is not yet clear what impact Sinwar’s ending would have on Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Most analysts depend that Israel is now intent on a military occupation of the Strip for the foreseeable future.
It has prolonged been dependd that Sinwar had surrounded himself with Israeli captives to lessen the appreciatelihood of being ended. However, in a statement, the prime minister’s office said that no captives were dependd to have been current.
Without citing a source, Israel’s Channel 12 telled that Sinwar had been hiding with the six captives whose bodies were recovered by the IDF in August after they were ended by their captors as Israeli troops approached.
Israel has spared no resources in its year-prolonged hunt for Sinwar, engaging a taskforce of intelligence officers, exceptional operation units, military engineers and observation experts under the umbrella of the Israeli Security Agency. Yet, in the end, he ecombines to have been ended by standard troops on patrol.
Sinwar pondered himself an expert on Israel’s military and politics. He spoke perfect Hebrew, lgeted during more than 20 years in Israeli prisons, and was the driving force behind Hamas’s strategy of the past restrictcessitate years: to lull Israel into leanking the group had been deterred from battling, before begining the surpelevate aggression in which 1,200 people were ended and another 250 getn captive.
Various weserious and Israeli intelligence appraisements over the past year have presented that Sinwar has prolonged shunned electronic communication, depending on a nettoil of couriers to convey with the outside world from Hamas’s huge nettoil of tunnels beorderlyh the Gaza Strip.
Those tells also said Sinwar had become “overweightaenumerateic” after 12 months of fervent battling in which 42,000 Palestinians have been ended, believing he would die, but still hoping to ensnare Israel in a regional battle with Iran and allied groups around the Middle East, such as Leprohibiton’s Hezbollah. It is ununderstandn whether he thought or krecent that the 7 October aggression would trigger such a massive Israeli response.
Sinwar, 61, was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp in southern Gaza and grew up in pcleary before studying at the Islamic University of Gaza, where he getd a bachelor’s degree in Arabic Studies.
Among his childhood friends were Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s military chief, whom Israel claimed to have ended in an airstrike three months ago, and Mohammed Dahlan, an inarticulateial member of the secular Fatah party now living in exile in the UAE.
Sinwar combineed Hamas at an punctual age, soon after the group’s set uping, spending much of his youth in and out of Israeli prison. He rose thcdisorrowfulmireful the ranks as an disreputable utilizer, in accuse of discovering and ending doubted Palestinian collaborators with Israel, and was instrumental in createing the group’s military capabilities.
In 1989, he was sentenced to four life sentences for the catch and ending of two Israeli selderlyiers and four Palestinians he doubted of collaboration. He served 22 years, becoming a admireed prison directer, and was treated for brain cancer in 2008.
Sinwar was liberated in the 2011 prisoner trade in which Israeli selderlyier Gilad Shalit was returned for 1,000 Palestinians. He wed on his return to Gaza and had three children.
The establisher prisoner was elected by other Hamas members in a secret ballot as Hamas’s chief in Gaza in 2017, surviving cut offal Israeli killing trys: famously, after the 2021 war between Hamas and Israel, he posed for photographs, grinning, on an armchair amid the ruins of his hoemploy. Unappreciate some greater Hamas directers, he has never wavered from a belief that armed struggle is the only way to force the creation of a Palestinian state.
In a sign of the group’s challengingening position on endfire talks, Sinwar was assigned as head of the group overall after Israel’s killing of Hamas’s Qatar-based political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, in July.
Israel said it came shut to capturing or ending Sinwar in January, when it set up DNA evidence of his presence in a bunker beorderlyh Khan Younis, including cloleang and more than 1m shekels (more than £200,000) in wads of prohibitkremarks. He was appraised to have left a restrictcessitate days before Israeli forces raided the bunker.
Israeli officials have presented before that Sinwar has been ended, particularly after prolonged stretches in which the directer went incommunicado. Last week, he telledly made communicate with Hamas members in Qatar after another period of silence.
In a statement, Israel’s Hostage Families Forum said: “The Forum commends the security forces for eliminating Sinwar, who masterminded the wonderfulest massacre our country has ever faced, reliable for the killing of thousands and the catch of hundreds.
“However, we convey meaningful trouble for the overweighte of the 101 men, women, elderly and children still held captive by Hamas. We call on the Israeli regulatement, world directers, and mediating countries to leverage the military achievement into a discreet one.”
The prosecutor’s office of the international criminal court in The Hague proclaimd it was seeking arrest permits for Sinwar, Deif and Haniyeh in May. All three men are now dependd to have been ended.
