Israel kills Yahya Sinwar, Hamas leader and mastermind of 7/10
Sinwar is believed to have carefully planned the October 7 attacks together with the head of the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, Mohamed Deif, who was killed in an Israeli attack last June.
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Israel has killed Hamas ‘ top leader and mastermind of the October 7 attacks, Yahya Sinwar , the most wanted man in Israel’s offensive inside the Gaza Strip, Israeli Army Radio confirmed.
“Yahya Sinwar has been eliminated,” the official media reported. Public television Kan broadcast a similar message.
Sinwar was killed in clashes between infantry troops and Hamas militants during a routine patrol yesterday afternoon in Rafah, the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli media, citing military sources.
The army reported a few hours ago that during its military operations in the Strip, without specifying when or where, it had killed “three terrorists” and was confirming whether one of them was Sinwar, while assuring that there were no Israeli hostages in the area.
Other leaders assassinated
As Israel awaited DNA results confirming his death, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant posted an image on his X account with the faces of the slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, respectively, crossed out with a black rectangle, raising questions about Sinwar.
“You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword,” Gallant wrote, citing verse 26 of Leviticus. “Our enemies cannot hide. We will pursue them and destroy them,” he added.
Born in a refugee camp in Khan Yunis, a city in southern Gaza, Sinwar was elected leader of Hamas in Gaza in 2017 after building a reputation as a staunch enemy of Israel and on August 6 – after the assassination in Tehran of the then head of the political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh – he was chosen to occupy the highest position in the Islamist group’s organisation.
He represented the group’s hardest and most belligerent line and is considered by Israel to be the mastermind of the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israeli territory in which some 1,200 people died and another 250 were kidnapped, making him Israel’s most wanted man since then and putting him on the EU sanctions list.
Sinwar is believed to have carefully planned the October 7 attacks together with the head of the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, Mohamed Deif, who was killed in an Israeli attack last June in Mawasi, in the south of the Strip.
Israel has assassinated several senior Hamas leaders in the past : the group’s wheelchair-bound founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yasin, in March 2004, his successor Abdelaziz Rantisi less than a month later, as well as two other Hamas leaders, Salah Shehade (2002) and Ahmed Yabari (2012).
