Israel claims it killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of Oct. 7 attack

Israel confirmed this Thursday, October 17, that it had killed the top leader of Hamas and mastermind of the October 7 attacks, Yahya Sinwar, the most wanted man in the Israeli offensive within the Gaza Strip, confirmed the official radio of the Israeli Army. .

“Yahya Sinwar has been eliminated“, reported the official media, a message similar to that broadcast by Kan public television.

Sinwar’s death occurred in fighting between infantry troops and Hamas militiamen during a routine patrol on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 16, in Rafah, the southern end of the Strip, according to Israeli media, citing military sources.

The Army reported a few hours ago that during its military operations in the Strip, without specifying when or where, it had killed “three terrorists” and they were corroborating whether one of them was Sinwar.while ensuring that there were no Israeli hostages in the area.

While Israel was awaiting DNA results that would confirm his death, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant published on his X account an image with the crossed out faces of the murdered Hasan Nasrallah and Mohamed Deif, leader of Hezbollah and military chief of Hamas, respectively, with a black rectangle, raising the question about Sinwar.

“You will pursue your enemies and they will fall before you by the sword,” Gallant wrote, quoting verse 26 of Leviticus. “Our enemies cannot hide. We will hunt them down and eliminate them“he added.

Born in a refugee camp in Khan Yunis, a city in southern Gaza, Sinwar was elected leader of Hamas in Gaza in 2017 after establishing a reputation as a staunch enemy of Israel and on August 6 – after the assassination in Tehran of the then head of the political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh – was chosen to occupy the highest position in the organizational chart of the Islamist group.

He represented the hardest and most belligerent line of the group and He is considered by Israel to be the mastermind of the October 7, 2023 attacks against its territory, in which some 1,200 people died and another 250 were kidnapped.which made him the most wanted man in the Hebrew country since then and included him on the EU sanctions list.

Sinwar would have carefully planned the October 7 attacks together with the head of the al-Qasam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, Mohamed Deif, who was killed in an Israeli attack last June in Mawasi, in the south of the Strip.

In the past, Israel has killed several senior Hamas leaders: the group’s wheelchair-bound founder Sheikh Ahmed Yasin in March 2004, and his successor Abdelaziz Rantisi less than a month later, as well as to two other leaders of the armed wing, Salah Shehade (2002) or Ahmed Yabari (2012).