Main Information
The Israel Defense Forces said this week that they are closing in on one of their biggest targets, Yahya Sinwar, a former Israeli prisoner and leader of the militant Hamas movement based in Gaza, who is referred to by Israeli officials as a “walking dead man.”
Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas, has been described as a “walking dead man” by Israeli officials.
Key Facts
Sinwar, who Israeli officials describe as the mastermind behind the Hamas attack on October 7 against Israel, hails from southern Gaza and joined Hamas – an Islamic group founded in 1987 – in the late 1980s, gaining notoriety as a founder of the movement’s intelligence apparatus, known as the Mujahideen and Dawah organization, also known as Al-Majd.
In 1989, Sinwar was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences for the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers, and he spent time in an Israeli prison – where he reportedly learned Hebrew – until his release in 2011, as part of a massive prisoner exchange deal in which Israeli authorities freed more than 1,000 prisoners in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Hamas.
Since his release from prison, Sinwar has been involved in multiple rounds of fighting against Israel, including an 11-day conflict in May 2021, when Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad launched rockets at Israel while Israel conducted air strikes on Gaza.
In 2015, the U.S. State Department designated Sinwar as a global terrorist, banning American citizens from dealing with him – and he has also been sanctioned by the UK and France.
The 61-year-old Sinwar was elected Hamas leader in Gaza in 2017 in secret elections, where he presented a public platform of peaceful and popular resistance despite his reputation as a hardline figure, and he was re-elected for a second four-year term in 2021, just months before another round of Hamas rocket attacks on Israel.
Sinwar has also gained notoriety as a critic of Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority and its ruling Fatah party – which competes with Hamas and controls the West Bank but not Gaza – where Sinwar pledged at a celebratory gathering marking the 35th anniversary of Hamas last year to “give the opportunity to ignite the resistance in the West Bank.”
Sinwar vowed in that speech to bring to Israel “with God’s permission, a massive flood” and “endless rockets” and “millions of our people, like the recurring tide,” according to a translation by Reuters.
While Israeli officials have pointed to Sinwar as a driving force behind the Hamas attack on October 7, Haril Shorif, a senior researcher in Middle Eastern studies at Tel Aviv University, told CNN this week that Sinwar was one of “three” senior Hamas officials who planned the attack on Israel.
Shorif also told CNN that Sinwar “is considered the most important” among the senior Hamas officials, although he said that Sinwar is just one of several “centers of power” within Hamas, which Shorif said maintains an “open” organizational structure, with some top leaders living in Qatar.
In the past, Sinwar has publicly expressed caution about war with Israel, stating to Italian journalist Francesca Borri in 2018 that “the new war is not in anyone’s interest,” adding that Hamas would be willing to negotiate with Israel in exchange for lifting Israel and Egypt’s blockade on Gaza (which has been in place since Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007).
As a result, several media outlets reported that Israeli analysts believed Hamas leaders – including Sinwar – were not interested in further fighting, an impression that changed after the October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,200 people in Israel and the taking of about 240 hostages.
Background
Home
Fighting resumed in the Gaza Strip late last week after a series of temporary ceasefires came to an end. Facing increasing demands from Western leaders for a ceasefire, Israel and Hamas reached an agreement for a temporary ceasefire lasting four days late last month, with Hamas pledging to release some of the hostages it took in its attack on October 7 and Israel agreeing to release around 150 Palestinians detained in its prisons. The ceasefire was extended for an additional two days on the condition of releasing more hostages, although this pause came to a sudden end last week when Israeli defense forces accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire and resumed their airstrikes on the Gaza Strip – where Hamas had only released over 100 hostages. In recent days, fighting has concentrated around Hamas’s stronghold in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, after Israel’s initial assault focused on Gaza City in the north of the territory. On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted that Israeli defense forces had surrounded the home of Sinwar in Khan Younis, although this step is believed to be largely symbolic, as it’s thought that the Hamas leader is hiding deep underground in Hamas’s vast tunnel network. In his tweet, Netanyahu acknowledged that Sinwar’s house “is not his fortress, and he can escape, but it’s only a matter of time until we find him.”
The Big Number
More than 18,200. That is the estimated number of people killed in the fighting since Hamas launched its attack on Israel on October 7, leading to Israel declaring war. This number includes over 17,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-led Gaza health ministry, in addition to around 1,200 people killed in Israel during Hamas’s attack on October 7, according to Israeli officials.
Additional Information
On Wednesday, Israel stated it had killed about half of Hamas’s mid-level leadership in Gaza, although it hadn’t killed members of Hamas’s upper leadership, including Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
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