DayofPal– Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is the first Palestinian political commander to be killed on the battlefield since 1948, when renowned Palestinian national fighter Abd Al-Qadir Al-Husayni was killed in a gun battle with the Israeli Haghanah militant near Jerusalem.
The Israeli army has claimed it killed Hamas leader Yahya Siwar in armed clashes with a group of resistance in Rafah neighborhood of Tal As-Sultan, south of the Gaza Strip, on Thursday Oct. 17, 2024.
After a whole year of bloody extermination of Palestinian people in Gaza searching for Yahya Sinwar, the Israeli government has confirmed it killed Hamas leader accidentally in Rafah, not knowing before that Sinwar was in the building where he was killed.
Israeli officials told Axios that the incident on Wednesday was “coincidental” and not based on any intelligence.
Hamas has not yet commented on Israel’s announcement of Sinwar’s Killing, yet Palestinians in the Gaza enclave, the West Bank, the diaspora and all free people around the globe have mourned the heroic death of Yahya Sinwar after the Israeli military published photos for him.
Sinwar appeared wearing his military pouch and weapon, prayer beads, and a booklet of religious remembrances, conveying that he engaged in armed clashes with Israeli soldiers before his death, according to the Israeli military photos.
His latest moment video published by the army has triggered widespread reactions that praise his extraordinary courage and steadfastness.
Killed on battlefield
The Israel military claimed that a unit from its 828th Bislamach Brigade was patrolling Tal al-Sultan on Wednesday. Three Palestinian fighters were identified and engaged by the Israeli forces – and all were “eliminated.”
The soldiers did not return to the scene until Thursday morning. It was then, as the dead were inspected, that one of the bodies was found to bear a striking resemblance to the leader of Hamas.
Part of his finger was removed and sent to Israel for testing, BBC said. His body was finally extracted and brought to Israel later that day as the area was made safe.
Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, said his forces “didn’t know he was there but we continued to operate”. He said his troops had identified the three men running from house to house, and engaged them before they were “eliminated.”
The man, since identified as Sinwar, “ran alone into one of the buildings” and was killed after being located with a drone. The Israeli military alleged that Sinwar was struck by an Israeli tank on Wednesday. Only after sending in soldiers on foot did the Israeli military identify the man as Hamas’ leader.
None of the captives Sinwar, as it was claimed to be using as a human shield, were present. Drone footage released by the Israeli military late on Thursday was said to show Sinwar’s final moments before he was killed.
The video appears to be shot from a drone flying through the open window of a mostly destroyed building. It approaches a man, with his head covered, sitting in an armchair on the first floor of a house that is littered with debris.
The man, who seems to be injured, then throws what appears to be a stick at the drone and the video ends.
Hagari claimed Sinwar had been shot in his hand.
Regarding the house which Sinwar was inside, CNN was able to make the geolocation by comparing recent satellite imagery to videos and photos from the vicinity that were shared on social media by the Israeli forces.
The home was roughly 1,000 feet (300 meters) from what appears to be an “IDF forward operating base or vehicle depot.” Multiple satellite images from Planet Labs taken this month show a number of military vehicles, and even a bulldozer, parked among newly constructed earthen berms in the same spots over multiple days and weeks.
Hagari also claimed that Sinwar was trying to escape to the north when he was martyred on Wednesday.
“I believe he was running, moved from an underground compound to houses trying to escape north to a more secure compound,” Hagari said.
Reactions
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel has “settled its account” with Sinwar but the “war is not yet ended”.
Israeli campaign group, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, welcomed the Israeli army’s statement, saying Sinwar’s death should help “secure” the release of captives still in Gaza.
US President Joe Biden issued a statement on Thursday saying that the killing of Sinwar presents the opportunity of a “day after” without Hamas in power in Gaza and accused the Hamas leader of being an “insurmountable obstacle” in front of that goal.
While Israeli officials have not framed the moment as the beginning of the end of the war, Biden appeared to link the killing to an end to Israel’s war on Gaza.
“I will be speaking soon with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders to congratulate them, to discuss the pathway for bringing the hostages home to their families, and for ending this war once and for all, which has caused so much devastation to innocent people,” Biden said.
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris gave a video address in which she said the killing was “justice served” for the “mastermind” of the 7 October 2023 attack.
“This moment gives us an opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza,” Harris said.
Iranian mission to the United Nations said the final moments of Sinwar will be a model for resistance to Israel.
“When Muslims look up to the Martyr Sinwar standing on the battlefield – in combat attire and out in the open, not in a hideout, facing the enemy – the spirit of resistance will be strengthened,” the mission wrote in a post on X.
“He will become a model for the youth and children who will carry forward his path towards the liberation of Palestine,” it said, adding that “as long as occupation and aggression exist, resistance will endure, for the martyr remains alive and a source of inspiration.”
Killing the leader of Hamas won’t break Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation, says Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator who currently heads the Middle East and North Africa programme of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
NATO’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte told reporters at a Brussels news conference that “if he has died, I personally will not miss him,” referring to Sinwar. On the other hand, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the United Kingdom “will not mourn” the death of Sinwar.
What’s Next?
In a video address, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the killing of the Hamas leader was not the end of Israel’s war on Gaza, and that its military would continue fighting until its captives were returned.
“Today evil has been dealt a blow but our task has still not been completed,” Netanyahu said.
In his statement, he also framed the current conflict as a regional war. Israel recently invaded Lebanon and has been fighting against the Hezbollah movement while also conducting air strikes against the Houthi movement inside Yemen.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz earlier on Thursday sent a message to his counterparts around the world, confirming the killing.
“The elimination of Sinwar opens the possibility for the immediate release of the hostages and paves the way for a change that will lead to a new reality in Gaza – without Hamas and without Iranian control,” Katz said in his message.
Who is Yahya Sinwar?
Yahya Sinwar was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp in southern Gaza in 1962. His parents were forcibly displaced by Zionist militias from their home in Askhelon in 1948 during the Nakba (catastrophe), when 750,000 Palestinians were kicked out of their homes.
He read Arab studies at the Islamic University of Gaza, where he got his first taste for student politics and activism.
It was at university, in 1982, that he was arrested for the first time by Israeli authorities for involvement in anti-occupation activism.
He was re-arrested three years later, and subsequently met Ahmed Yassin, who would go on to found Hamas. Yassin brought Sinwar into his inner circle.
Sinwar spent 22 years of his life in Israeli prisons, for allegedly planning the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers in 1988. He was freed in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange deal.
An Israeli government assessment of his years in detention described him as “ruthless” and “powerful”. He used his time in jail to become fluent in Hebrew.
Sinwar succeeded Ismail Haniyeh as Hamas’s leader in Gaza in 2017. The 62-year-old became leader of Hamas in August, days after his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an Israeli attack carried out in Tehran.
After the October 7 attack in southern Occupied territories, which he is accused of masterminding, the Israeli military described him as a “dead man walking”.
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