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Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar wields enormous power while remaining largely hidden in the tunnels beneath Gaza and has been considered one of the extremist group’s most influential leaders.
The Israeli military announced Thursday that he had been killed in Gaza, raising hopes for an end to the conflict.
Mr. Sinwar, long considered the architect of Hamas’ military strategy in Gaza, was also elected to head the group’s political office in August, strengthening his power. He was elevated to the post after the assassination of the group’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh.
Formation period of Shinwar
Mr. Shinwar was born in Gaza in 1962 to a family that had fled their homeland along with hundreds of thousands of other Palestinian Arabs who were displaced or forced to flee during the war over the creation of Israel. This expulsion deeply influenced his decision to join Hamas in the 1980s.
Mr. Sinwar was recruited by Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and appointed head of the internal security force known as al-Majid. His job was to find and punish suspects who had violated Islamic moral law or collaborated with the Israeli occupiers, a position that ultimately got him into trouble with Israeli authorities. .
his life in prison
According to Israeli court records, Mr. Shinwar was imprisoned in 1988 for killing four Palestinians on charges of apostasy or cooperation with Israel. He spent more than 20 years in Israeli prisons, where he learned Hebrew and developed a deeper understanding of Israeli culture and society.
While incarcerated, Sinwar took advantage of online university programs and devoured Israeli news. he translated into arabic tens of thousands of pages A contraband Hebrew autobiography written by the former head of Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet.
Yuval Bitton, an Israeli dentist who treated Mr. Sinwar while he was in custody and forged a relationship with him, secretly shared translated pages with Mr. Sinwar so that inmates could learn about the authorities’ counter-terrorism strategy. He said he did. Dr. Bitton said Mr. Sinwar liked to call himself an “expert on Jewish history.”
The two spoke regularly. “My conversation with Shinwar was not personal or emotional,” Dr. Bitton said. “They were just about Hamas.”
Mr. Sinwar memorized the Quran and calmly explained the organization’s governing doctrine, Dr. Bitton said, adding that Mr. Sinwar’s motives were religious, not political.
While in prison, Mr. Sinwar also wrote a novel called “Thorns and Carnations,” a coming-of-age story about the limitations of his life. The narrator is a Gazan boy named Ahmed who emerges from hiding during the 1967 war. The Arab-Israeli war affects life under Israeli occupation, causing “the breasts of young people to boil like a cauldron.” In retaliation, Ahmed’s friends and family attack those collaborating with the occupiers and enemies. Woven throughout this book is the theme of the never-ending sacrifices that the Resistance demands.
Sinwar once told an Italian journalist that prisons are melting pots. “Prison makes you grow,” he said, adding that it gave him time to think about what he believed in and the price he was willing to pay for it.
Despite this, Mr Shinwar has attempted to escape from custody several times, once digging a hole in the floor of his cell in an attempt to tunnel beneath the prison and exit the visitor centre. And he figured out how to conspire against Israel with outside Hamas leaders, smuggle cell phones into prisons, and use lawyers and visitors to kidnap Israeli soldiers and exchange them for Palestinian prisoners. They succeeded in sending messages such as finding the location.
These activities foreshadowed the approach Mr. Sinwar would take years later in planning the October 7 attacks on Israel.
after prison
When Sinwar was released from an Israeli prison in a prisoner swap in 2011, after years of failed negotiations, he said the detention of Israeli soldiers was a proven tactic for freeing Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. He said there is. “For a prisoner of war, capturing an Israeli soldier is the best news in the world, because he knows that a glimmer of hope has been opened to him,” Shinwar said at the time.
After Mr. Shinwar was released from prison, he got married and had a child. He rarely spoke about his family in public, but once said, “My son’s first words were ‘dad,’ ‘mother,’ and ‘drone.'”
His hardline stance reflects his reluctance to reach a cease-fire agreement with Israel that would end the fighting in Gaza and result in the return of the approximately 100 living and dead hostages taken from Israel who are still being held in Gaza. It was hinting. Gaza.
Indeed, Israeli and U.S. intelligence officials say Mr. Sinwar’s strategy was to continue the war in Gaza until it shattered Israel’s international reputation and damaged its relationship with its main ally, the United States. There is.
What does this mean for ceasefire negotiations?
Shinwar’s death has raised hopes for an end to the conflict. Both Mr. Sinwar and the Israeli government had refused to compromise during months of ceasefire negotiations.
His death could prompt Hamas to accede to some of Israel’s demands or give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the political cover he needs to soften his negotiating stance in a symbolic victory. It could be either.
Since the war began, most ceasefire negotiations have taken place in Egypt and Qatar. But Mr. Shinwar still played a key role from his hideout in Gaza. Throughout the talks, Hamas negotiators were asked for Mr. Sinwar’s consent before agreeing to any concessions, people familiar with the talks said.
Hamas officials have long maintained that Mr. Sinwar has no final say in the organization’s decisions, but allies and allies say his leadership role in Gaza and his coercive personality are key to Hamas’s management. He is said to be playing a very important role in this.
“There is no decision that can be made without consulting Mr. Sinwar,” said Salah al-Din al-Awaudeh, a Hamas member and political analyst who was close to Mr. Sinwar while he was imprisoned in Israel in the 1990s and 2000s. Ta. “Sinwar is not an ordinary leader. He is an influential person and an architect of events,” Al Awadeh added.
