Israel Claims Hamas Chief Sinwar Killed in Gaza

Sinwar, 62, spent his life organizing, struggling and fighting against Israel before being appointed as Hamas’s political chief at-large to succeed Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in a suspected Israeli attack in Tehran on July 31.

Hamas has not commented on Israel’s claim of killing Sinwar, which came on Thursday as the region slides into further violence, spurring fears of an all-out conflict across the Middle East.

The Israeli regime is at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iraqi groups and Houthis have been launching drones and missiles at Israel. The United States military has been bombing Houthi positions in Yemen. And Israel is set to attack Iran in response to an Iranian missile assault on Israeli military bases, Al Jazeera reported.

Still, US officials have expressed hope that the killing of Sinwar may help put an end to the conflict.

Seen as the architect of the attack on October 7, 2023, against Israel, Sinwar viewed armed struggle as the most effective way to confront the Israeli occupation amid the indifference of the international community towards the suffering of Palestinians.

The Gaza-based Palestinian leader has been public enemy number one in Israel. Prior to becoming the head of Hamas’s political bureau he served as the group’s top official in Gaza.

Not seen publicly throughout the war, Sinwar was assumed to be in hiding. Some media reports suggested that he was deep inside Hamas’s tunnel network, surrounded by Israeli captives.

However, according to Israeli accounts, Sinwar was killed in Rafah after a firefight with Israeli troops. It is not clear why he was out with fighters or whether he had been commanding military operations from above ground all along.

Born in 1962 in a refugee camp Khan Younis, Sinwar is often portrayed as one of the most uncompromising top Hamas officials. He was arrested by Israel repeatedly in the early 1980s for his involvement in anti-occupation activism at the Islamic University in Gaza.

After his graduation, he helped establish a network of fighters to take up armed resistance against Israel. The group would later become the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.

Sinwar joined Hamas as one of its leaders almost as soon as the group was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 1987. The following year, he was arrested by the Israeli forces and handed four life sentences -the equivalent of 426 years in jail- for alleged involvement in the capture and killing of two Israeli soldiers and four suspected Palestinian spies.

While incarcerated, Sinwar penned a novel about the Palestinian struggle, believed to be partly autobiographical, entitled The Thorn and the Carnation.

He spent 23 years in Israeli jail where he learned Hebrew and became well-versed in Israeli affairs and domestic politics. He was freed in 2011 as part of the prisoner exchange deal that saw the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been captured by Hamas.