As master of clocks, Yahya Sinouar negotiated every point of the truce agreement, from the release of Israeli hostages to that of Palestinian prisoners, seeking to push his advantage. Since this “pause” came into force on Friday, November 24, the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip has dictated the tempo, ready to rein in the reins if he judges that Israel is flouting the negotiated terms. The inflexible 61-year-old Palestinian leader defied all those in Israel who already presented him as a dead man. After signing the most brutal attack ever carried out against Israel on October 7, Yahya Sinouar is not only still alive fifty days after the start of the war, but he has scored a new political victory.
“Someone like Sinouar deciphers very good Israelis. The leaders of Hamas essentially understood perfectly the divisions of the country, therefore its weakness, but also the fact that, to fight an army significantly stronger in means and men, it is necessary to resort to different weapons, hence the hostages », analyzes Matti Steinberg. This former advisor to several heads of Shin Beth, the Israeli domestic intelligence services, considers the “game” on the hostages very important: “Sinouar consecrates Hamas as the one who frees Palestinian prisoners. They promised it, they do it. They imposed the idea that October 7 was a victory for their movement. And each release of hostages is a reminder of this victory in the eyes of Palestinian public opinion. »
Imprisoned for twenty-two years in Israel, then released by Benjamin Netanyahu, then already prime minister, thanks to the “Shalit agreement”, named after the Franco-Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in 2006 and exchanged for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners five years later, Yahya Sinouar understands better than anyone the symbolic and strategic significance of such an agreement. He is proof that this form of bargaining can work. By using this weapon again, on October 7, he planned with the head of the armed wing of Hamas, Mohammed Deif, a large-scale operation with the aim of freeing the thousands of Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons. Today’s agreement, however, limits the number of releaseable prisoners to three for every Israeli captive.
The “Butcher of Khan Younes”
To the brutality of the attack, which resulted in the capture of 240 hostages and the death of 1,200 Israelis, was added, for Benjamin Netanyahu, the humiliation of having been fooled by the man whom he he thought he had held back since his accession to power in 2017. He would have wanted to force him to bend. But the resilience of the movement in the face of the violence of Israeli bombings, which have left more than 14,800 dead since the start of the war, according to Hamas, and the pressure from the families of the hostages forced it to accept negotiation.
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