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Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Thursday that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed.
“Mass murderer Yahya Sinwar, who was responsible for the October 7 massacre and atrocities, was killed today by IDF soldiers,” Katz said in a statement.
The Israeli military had previously said it was checking whether 62-year-old Sinwar was killed following an operation in the Gaza Strip that it said targeted three militants. It said there were no signs that Israeli hostages were present in the building where the three militants were killed.
Al-Majd, a Hamas-linked website that usually publishes on security issues, urged Palestinians to wait for information about Sinwar from the group itself and not from Israeli media, which they said was aimed at breaking their spirits.
The Israeli army confirmed Sinwar’s death in a statement Thursday stating that: “Upon completion of the body identification process, it can be confirmed that Yahya Sinwar was eliminated.”
“Yahya Sinwar was eliminated after hiding behind the civilian population of Gaza for the past year, both above and underground in Hamas tunnels in the Gaza Strip,” the statement continued.
Israeli Army Radio said the incident took place during a targeted ground operation in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. It said visual evidence suggested one of the men was likely Sinwar and DNA tests were being carried out. Israel has DNA samples of Sinwar from his time in an Israeli prison.
Members of Israel’s security cabinet had been informed that Sinwar is very likely dead, two officials with knowledge of the matter told Reuters earlier Thursday.
Sinwar’s death would be a major boost for the Israeli military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a series of high-profile assassinations of prominent leaders of its enemies in recent months.
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Architect of the October 7 attacks
Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people. including several Canadian citizenswhile according to Israeli government figures, more than 250 hostages were taken to Gaza. Israel believes about 100 hostages have yet to be repatriated, about a third of whom are believed to have died.
Dave Harden, the founder of Georgetown Strategy Group and a former U.S. official based in the region, called Sinwar’s possible death a “turning point” in the years-long war or for those still in captivity.
“What I would pay attention to next is what [will] At least Hamas is doing something with the hostages,” Harden told CBC News Network before Sinwar’s death was confirmed.
Hamas could kill some or all remaining hostages, Harden said, but there is a possibility that the development could be an “offramp” for Hamas’s senior figures in Qatar or elsewhere to negotiate with the Israelis.
According to Israel’s Ministry of Health, Israel’s response campaign has killed 42,438 Palestinians and injured another 99,246. The ministry’s count does not distinguish between fighters and civilians, but Gaza’s health ministry has said thousands of women and children have been killed in airstrikes.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday that humanitarian groups have been unable to reach northern Gaza to deliver food and medical supplies, while Israeli forces have been pushing into the region for almost two weeks.
On Thursday, several Palestinians, including children, were killed in an Israeli attack on a shelter in the northern Gaza Strip, a Gaza Health Ministry official said, while Israel said the attack targeted militants at the site.
Sinwar, the chief architect of the October 7, 2023, attacks, has since topped Israel’s wanted list. But he has so far escaped detection, possibly hiding in the warren of tunnels that Hamas has built under Gaza over the past two decades.
Sinwar, previously leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, was appointed overall leader following the assassination of former political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran, in August.
Israel also killed Hassan Nasrallahleader of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, in Beirut last month, as well as much of the top management of the group’s military wing.
International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan in May sought arrest warrants for Sinwar, Haniyeh and military commander Mohammed Deif for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and hostage-taking during the October 7 attacks on Israel. The Israeli military said in August that it believed Deif had been killed earlier this summer.
Released in exchange after 23 years in prison
Sinwar was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp in 1962. He rose to prominence as head of the Al-Majd security apparatus, which tracked down and killed Palestinians accused of providing information about Hamas to Israeli intelligence.
He was arrested in 1988 and sentenced to consecutive life sentences, accused of planning the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers and the murder of four Palestinians.
While he was imprisoned, Israeli medics performed surgery on Sinwar to remove a brain tumor, said Yuval Bitton, formerly head of the Israeli Prison Service’s intelligence department.
In 2011, he was one of 1,027 Palestinians released from Israeli prisons in exchange for a single Israeli soldier: Gilad Shalit, who by then had spent five years in captivity after being captured in a cross-border raid.
Despite his 23 years in prison, Sinwar’s militancy was on display at an anti-Israel rally in December 2022 in Gaza.
“We will come to you, God willing, in a roaring flood,” he said in his speech. “We will come to you with endless missiles, we will come to you in a boundless flood of soldiers, we will come to you with millions of our people, like the repeating tide.”
