Described by Israeli agents who interrogated him for hours in prison as “extremely intelligent”, Yahya Sinwar, considered the mastermind of the October 7 attacks and Israel’s most wanted man since then, was eliminated in the southern Gaza Strip after more than a year. of war, according to the official Israeli army radio.
On August 6, he was elected senior political leader of Hamasa group that in reality already dominated in the shadows from the Gaza Strip, where it planned the attack on Israeli soil, which left some 1,200 people dead and 250 kidnapped and sparked the current war in the enclave.
Sinwar then took the reins of the Hamas political bureau, replacing Ismail Haniyeh – assassinated on July 31 in Tehran in an attack attributed to Israel – after having led the group with an iron fist within the enclave since 2017.
In this position, Sinwar was technically the group’s “number two” – just behind Haniyeh, who lived in Qatar and was in charge of diplomatic relations – but he was already the one who actually controlled the group’s important decisions, combining power in the political and military branches.
Strategic change
His election, against all expectations, at the head of the political bureau two months ago, confirmed the strategic change of the group that he himself had promoted from Gaza, in which the military camp has swallowed up politics. It was the military side – represented by him and the group’s military leader, Mohamed Deif – that planned the October 7 holding and the political side, including Haniyeh, was informed when the plan was put forward.
Sinwar also had the last word, always with firm positions, in the talks aimed at obtaining a ceasefire and freeing the hostages, which failed time and again, although Haniyeh, of a more pragmatic and diplomatic nature, served as chief negotiator.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and military leaders have called Sinwar a “walking dead man” since the start of the war, but the Islamist leader has repeatedly slipped away since October, moving like a fish in water within of the group’s vast network. underground tunnels.
In December, the army even offered $400,000 to Gazans who would indicate his whereabouts in air-dropped leaflets in Gaza and Khan Younis, where troops surrounded one of his residences, leaving no trace of him.
He was the most wanted member of Hamas, for whom they offered the most money, followed only by Mohamed Deif, military leader of the Al Qasam Brigades – the armed wing of Hamas -, whom Israel killed in a attack at Mawasi on July 13.
Location unknown
Little is known about him since the start of the war. Hostage Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, freed after two weeks of captivity, said Sinwar visited several hostages held in a tunnel a few days after the attack and told them in correct Hebrew that they were there in security.
Israeli authorities have no doubt that Sinwar, who represented the hard-line and bellicose Hamas, was the one who carefully planned the attack in Israel, a country and society that he meticulously studied, aided by his fluency in Hebrew he learned in his almost 23 years in an Israeli prison.
“She is a very intelligent person who invested in her intellectual development and a deep understanding of Israeli society,” said Betty Lahat, former director of Hasharon prison where Sinwar was held.
In 1989, he was sentenced to four life sentences in Israel for plotting the kidnapping and assassination of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinian “collaborators” at the head of Hamas’s security services, but he was released in 2011 as part of the exchange of 1,047 Palestinians. prisoners for the return of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Born in Khan Yunis, a bastion of Palestinian support for the Muslim Brotherhood organization, Sinwar was first arrested by Israel in 1982, at the age of 19, for “Islamic activities”, during which time he won the trust of the founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed. Yassine.
Two years after the founding of Hamas in 1987, Sinwar created the group’s feared internal security division, Al Majd, guardian of “Islamic morality” and the scourge of anyone suspected of collaboration with Israel.
According to Israeli officials who interrogated him in prison, Sinwar proudly confessed to murdering 12 collaborators with his own hands and, during his time in prison, demonstrated his leadership abilities with a mixture of magnetism and the ability to sow seeds of hatred. fear.
