Army suspects him in the tunnel
For Israel, Hamas leader Sinwar is the devil
November 30, 2023, 4:06 p.m
He strangled Palestinians who worked with Israel with his own hands: Jahja Sinwar leads Hamas in the Gaza Strip and since he planned the massacre on October 7th, his popularity has also grown in the West Bank. He has been missing since October.
For the Israeli army he is “the face of the devil”: Jahja Sinwar, political leader of the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The 61-year-old is considered the mastermind of the brutal Hamas attack on Israel that left 1,200 dead on October 7th and has been on the US terror list for years. So far all attempts to turn him off have failed.
Short gray hair, full beard, slim build. This is how Sinwar appeared in public. He has not appeared since October and, like Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif, is believed to be in the tunnel system under the Gaza Strip. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant assured in early November: “We will find and eliminate Sinwar.”
“He planned the operation”
Hundreds of Hamas fighters invaded southern Israel at dawn on October 7th, murdering more than a thousand people with a level of cruelty that did not even spare babies. Over 240 people, including many women and children, were also kidnapped as hostages in the Gaza Strip. “That was his strategy, he planned the operation,” says Leïla Seurat from the Arab research center CAREP in Paris. He probably spent one or two years preparing the attack. “He surprised everyone with that,” says the scientist.
Sinwar’s career in Hamas was hidden for decades. When the first Intifada, the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, began in 1987 in a refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip, Sinwar joined the newly founded Hamas. He himself also comes from a refugee camp: Chan Yunis in the south. He later studied at the Islamic University in Gaza City.
23 years in Israeli prisons
At the age of 25, he was already heading the Hamas unit that punished Palestinians who worked with the Israelis. He was sentenced to life imprisonment four times for the killing of two Israeli soldiers. In total, Sinwar was imprisoned in Israel for 23 years. There he learned Hebrew and established himself as a leader of the prisoners. Sinwar was released in 2011 as one of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners who were exchanged for Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit.
Six years later, in 2017, Hamas elected him as its leader in the Gaza Strip after his predecessor, Ismail Haniya, became head of the organization and went into exile. Former prisoner Abu Abdallah described Sinwar as charismatic and making “decisions in complete calm.” Researcher Seurat calls Sinwar’s strategy at the head of Hamas “militarily radical and politically pragmatic.” “He doesn’t advocate violence for the sake of violence, but to force the Israelis to negotiate.”
Sinwar apparently reported his own brutality during interrogations in Israel. In an excerpt published by Israeli media, he describes how he kidnapped an alleged traitor: “We took him to the cemetery of Khan Yunis (…), I put him in a grave and strangled him with a cloth (…). I was sure he knew he deserved to die.”
Always keeping an eye on the West Bank
Politically, Sinwar wants to achieve unified leadership in all Palestinian areas, including the occupied West Bank, which is ruled by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, which rivals Hamas. The European Council on Foreign Relations think tank points out that “he has made it clear that he would punish anyone who tried to impede reconciliation with Fatah.”
When Sinwar was elected Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, the organization advocated a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, but its long-term goal remained the “liberation” of all of Palestine – i.e. the destruction of Israel.
Sinwar likes to give his speeches in front of posters of the Dome of the Rock, the iconic mosque in Jerusalem. He never just talks about the Gaza Strip; he always mentions the West Bank too. Since the agreement between Hamas and Israel to exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners, Sinwar’s popularity in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has risen enormously. Over the past few days, evening after evening, not only have the released Palestinians been cheered, but Sinwar has also been celebrated as their liberator.