Yahya Sinwar planned an attack on Israel that shocked the world, creating an ever-deepening disaster with no end in sight.
In Gaza, no figure has been more influential in determining the war’s trajectory than the 61-year-old Hamas leader. Obsessive, disciplined and dictatorial, he was a rare veteran fighter who learned Hebrew and studied his enemy closely during his years in Israeli prisons.
On Thursday, Israel said Sinwar was killed by soldiers in Gaza. Hamas has not received direct confirmation of his death.
This mysterious figure, feared on both sides of the battle line, planned a surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, together with the even more mysterious Mohammed Deif, leader of Hamas’s armed wing. Israel said it killed Deif in a July airstrike in southern Gaza that killed more than 70 Palestinians.
Shortly thereafter, exiled Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed during a visit to Iran in an explosion blamed on Israel. Sinwar was then chosen to take his place as Hamas’ supreme leader, although he was hiding in Gaza.
Palestinian militants who carried out the October 2023 attack killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted about 250 others, catching Israeli defense and intelligence forces off guard and shattering the image of Israeli invincibility.
Israel’s retaliation was overwhelming. The conflict has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, caused widespread destruction in Gaza and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and many on the brink of starvation.
Sinwar conducted indirect negotiations with Israel to try to end the war. One of his goals was to secure the release of thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, similar to the deal that freed him more than a decade ago.
He has worked to bring Hamas closer to Iran and its other allies across the region. The war he started drew in Hezbollah, ultimately leading to another Israeli invasion of Lebanon and prompting Iran and Israel to exchange fire directly for the first time, raising fears of an even more expansive conflict.
For Israelis, Sinwar was a nightmare figure. The Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, called him a murderer “who proved to the whole world that Hamas is worse than ISIS,” referring to the Islamic State group.
The always defiant Sinwar ended one of his few public speeches by inviting Israel to assassinate him, announcing in Gaza: “After this meeting, I will go home.” He then did so by shaking hands and taking selfies with people on the streets.
He was respected among Palestinians for opposing Israel and remaining in the impoverished Gaza Strip, unlike other Hamas leaders who lived more comfortably abroad.
But he was also feared because of his iron grip on Gaza, where public dissent is stifled.
Unlike the media-friendly personalities cultivated by some Hamas political leaders, Sinwar has never sought to build a public image. He was known as the “Butcher of Khan Younis” for his brutal approach towards Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel.
Sinwar was born in 1962 in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza to a family that was among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians expelled from what is now Israel during the 1948 war that accompanied its founding.
He was an early member of Hamas, which emerged from the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1987, when the coastal enclave was under Israeli military occupation.
Sinwar convinced the group’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, that to succeed as a resistance organization, Hamas must be purged of informers to Israel. They established a security arm, then known as Majd, headed by Sinwar.
Arrested by Israel in the late 1980s, during interrogation he confessed to killing 12 suspected collaborators. He was ultimately sentenced to four life sentences for crimes that included the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers.
Michael Koubi, former director of the investigative department of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, who interrogated Sinwar, recalled the confession that struck him most: Sinwar told how he forced a man to bury his own brother alive because he was suspected of working for Israel.
“When he told us this story, his eyes were full of happiness,” Koubi said.
However, in the eyes of his fellow prisoners, Sinwar was charismatic, sociable and bright, open to prisoners from all political factions.
He became the leader of hundreds of imprisoned Hamas members. He organized strikes to improve conditions. He learned Hebrew and studied Israeli society. He was known for feeding fellow prisoners and making kunafa, a delicacy of shredded dough stuffed with cheese.
“Being a leader in prison gave him experience in negotiations and dialogue, and he also understood the enemy’s mentality and how it influences him,” said Anwar Yassine, a Lebanese national who spent about 17 years in Israeli prisons, most of the time with Sinwar.
Yassine noted that Sinwar always treated him with respect, even though he belonged to the Lebanese Communist Party, whose secular principles were contrary to Hamas ideology.
During his years in detention, Sinwar wrote a 240-page novel, “Thistle and Carnations.” It tells the history of Palestinian society from the 1967 Middle East war to 2000, when the second intifada began.
“This is not my personal story, nor is it the story of a specific person, even though all the events are true,” Sinwar wrote in the introduction to the novel.
In 2008, after treatment at a Tel Aviv hospital, Sinwar survived an aggressive form of brain cancer.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released him in 2011 along with about 1,000 other prisoners in exchange for Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in a cross-border raid. Netanyahu has been sharply criticized for releasing dozens of prisoners held on suspicion of involvement in deadly attacks.
After returning to Gaza, Sinwar closely coordinated cooperation between Hamas’ political leadership and its military wing, the Qassam Brigades. He was also famous for his ruthlessness. He is widely believed to be behind the unprecedented 2016 killing of another top Hamas commander, Mahmoud Ishtewi, in an internal power struggle.
He also got married after being released.
In 2017, he was elected head of the Hamas political office in Gaza. Sinwar worked with Haniyeh to re-align the group with Iran and its allies, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah. He also focused on building Hamas’ military power.
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