Israel’s military said on Oct. 17 that Israeli troops in Gaza have killed the Hamas terrorist group’s top leader, Yahya Sinwar, a chief architect of last year’s attack on Israel that sparked the war.
“The IDF and ISA confirm that after a year-long pursuit, yesterday (Wednesday), October 16, 2024, IDF soldiers from the Southern Command eliminated Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Hamas terrorist organization, in an operation in the southern Gaza Strip,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement. “Yahya Sinwar planned and executed the October 7th Massacre, promoted his murderous ideology both before and during the war, and was responsible for the murder and abduction of many Israelis.”
The IDF said its troops, working in conjunction with the Israeli Security Agency (ISA), limited Sinwar’s movements as they closed in on his final location.
“Yahya Sinwar was eliminated after hiding for the past year behind the civilian population of Gaza, both above and below ground in Hamas tunnels in the Gaza Strip,” the IDF said.
Responding to the news, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “We have come to terms with Sinwar, this is an important moment in the war.”
Sinwar has topped Israel’s most wanted list since the beginning of the Israel–Hamas war a little more than a year ago, and his death is a powerful blow to the terrorist group.
Sinwar, 61, was seen by Israel as the mastermind behind the Oct. 7, 2023, invasion, during which Hamas terrorists carried out a massacre across southern Israel, leaving about 1,200 people dead and thousands more wounded and taking 251 people captive. About 100 captives remain in the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu said in a statement on Oct. 17, addressing the families of the hostages, “We will continue with all our might until the return home of all your loved ones, who are our loved ones.”
He also called for any remaining Hamas members in the Gaza Strip to surrender.
“Whoever lays down his arms and returns our abductees, we will allow him to leave and live,” the Israeli leader said.
U.S. President Joe Biden celebrated the news on Oct. 17.
“This is a good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world,” he said. “As the leader of the terrorist group Hamas, Sinwar was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Israelis, Palestinians, Americans, and citizens from over 30 countries.”
Biden said Sinwar represented “an insurmountable obstacle” to reaching a political settlement in the long-running conflict.
“That obstacle no longer exists. But much work remains before us,” Biden added.
Biden spoke with Netanyahu by phone on Oct. 17 to discuss Sinwar’s death. According to a White House readout of the call, the two leaders also discussed “how to use this moment to bring the hostages home and to bring the war to a close with Israel’s security assured and Hamas never again able to control Gaza.” The White House said the two leaders will remain in touch in the coming days.
Vice President Kamala Harris said in her own statement on Oct. 17: “Israel has a right to defend itself, and the threat Hamas poses to Israel must be eliminated. Today, there is clear progress toward that goal. Hamas is decimated, and its leadership is eliminated.”
Hamas has yet to confirm Sinwar’s death.
Sinwar had been Hamas’s top regional leader in the Gaza Strip since 2017. He also assumed the chairmanship of the Hamas political bureau earlier this summer after the previous chairman, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in July in a targeted explosion at a guest house in the Iranian capital of Tehran. Israel did not claim responsibility for Haniyeh’s death, but both Hamas and the Iranian government concluded that Israeli actors orchestrated the killing blast.
Even before the Israeli military concluded that Sinwar was dead, social media users posted graphic photos on Oct. 17 purporting to show his body partially buried in rubble.
Sinwar is believed to have been living in the network of tunnels beneath the Gaza Strip, along with Hamas terrorists who continue to hold out against the Israeli forces. The Israeli military released a video in February, purportedly showing Sinwar traveling through a tunnel beneath Khan Younis on Oct. 10, 2023, alongside several family members.
Sinwar was born on Oct. 29, 1962, in the Gaza town of Khan Younis, to parents who fled from Ashkelon in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. He grew up in the Gaza Strip and was among the first to join Hamas as it formed in the 1980s.
Israeli authorities arrested Sinwar in 1988 and charged him with abducting and murdering two Israeli soldiers and others he had accused of collaborating with the Israeli government. He received four consecutive life sentences for the killings.
He remained in an Israeli prison until 2011 when Israel agreed to release more than 1,000 Palestinian detainees in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, whom Hamas had captured and held captive in Gaza for five years.
Sinwar continued to lead Hamas against Israel in the years following his 2011 release. The decades-old Israeli–Palestinian conflict spilled over into open conflict between Hamas and Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014 and again during an 11-day period in May 2021.
In 2015, the U.S. Department of State labeled Sinwar a specially designated global terrorist. The designation meant that it was illegal for U.S. citizens to provide him with any financial or material help and that any assets he may have had in the United States had to be frozen.
“The hunt for Sinwar will not stop until we catch him, dead or alive,” IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a press conference upon releasing the footage, noting that the video was taken from a surveillance camera inside the tunnel, where soldiers had been pursuing Sinwar since they surrounded his home in December 2023.
Hamas Deputy Leader Khalil al-Hayya may now become the chairman of Hamas. He sat for an interview with BBC reporter Jeremy Bowen in Qatar on Oct. 1, but his current location is unknown.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) posted arrest warrant applications in May for Sinwar, Haniyeh, and Hamas Military Wing Chief Mohamed Deif for their roles in the Oct. 7 attacks. The ICC also submitted arrest warrant applications on the same day for Netanyahu and Gallant regarding Israel’s conduct during the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
British Defence Secretary John Healey, on Oct. 17, told the BBC, “I for one, will not mourn the death of a terror leader like Sinwar, someone who was responsible for the terror attack on October 7.”
Healey said Sinwar had “triggered not just the darkest, deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Second World War, [but also] more than a year of conflict and an intolerable level of civilian Palestinian casualties.”
Also on Oct. 17, Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry said 15 people, including five children, were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a school sheltering homeless Palestinians.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times