Yahya Sinwar, who previously spent 22 years in Israeli prison before being released in 2011 during a prisoner exchange, has led the militant group Hamas since the deaths of its previous leaders in July this year. He was said to have directed Hamas’s response to the Israeli war on Gaza as well as having involvement in the negotiations for a ceasefire. Israel was also recently responsible for the death of the Chief Negotiator for Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh.
Sinwar has been the Israeli government’s number-one target in Gaza since Oct 7th 2023 for his alleged planning of the Hamas-led attack on Israel, during which 1,139 people died and approximately 250 were taken captive.
A special unit to find Sinwar was established within Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence force. Supporting Shin Bet, US agencies were said to be intercepting electronic communications to help locate Sinwar and providing “ground-penetrating radar”; one of the world’s most sophisticated surveillance networks. Despite this, the man described as a “dead man walking” by the Israeli military, avoided detection. American officials said Sinwar was harder to find because he did not use electronic communications, which could have been tracked.
The killing of Sinwar is said to have been by chance and not part of a specific operation. Between 2 pm and 3 pm on Wednesday 17th October, a patrol Bislamach Brigade training unit of the Israeli army was conducting searches in the Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood of Rafah, an area already mostly destroyed. According to the New York Times, the unit stumbled across a small group of fighters moving between buildings and exchanged fire. Three of the fighters were killed, while one injured fighter [Sinwar] sought refuge in a damaged building. The patrol sent a drone after him. The injured fighter was resting on an armchair as footage caught him throwing a stick at the drone, and although at the time the patrol did not know of the Hamas leader’s presence, the building was still shelled by missiles.
His corpse remained undisturbed for some time as the soldiers waited until the area had been secured. Sinwar’s body was then taken to a laboratory in Israel where police confirmed a match with his DNA records from his previous imprisonment. Both the US and Israel rushed to claim their intelligence contributed to the locating of Sinwar, claiming that their efforts had determined the area where Sinwar was and that they had been closing in on the Hamas leader, but there is little evidence to prove that.
Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, described Sinwar’s death as “the beginning of the end” but warned “the task before us is not yet complete”. In a press conference, Netanyahu said Israel will continue to work until the end of the war.
Reporting to news of Sinwar’s death, US President Joe Biden said that Israeli reports that Sinwar had been killed marked a “good day” for Israel, the US and the world – and drew comparisons to how Americans felt after Osama bin Laden’s death. Biden also reportedly spoke to Netanyahu and they agreed to work towards a deal to free the remaining hostages.
On a slightly different note, Vice President Kamala Harris said “justice has been served,” and that “this moment gives us an opportunity to end the war in Gaza”, stressing the need to end suffering in Gaza.
