Israel says Hamas Leader Yayah Sinwar Killed in Gaza; No confirmation from the movement

CAIRO – 17 October 2024: The Israeli Army announced on Thursday that the Leader of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) Yahya Al Sinwar (aka Abu Ibrahim) has been killed in clashes with Israeli forces in the City of Rafah, Gaza.

Earlier, the Israeli Army (IDF) issued a statement saying that Sinwar was killed; Israeli KOL reported that Sinwar was wearing his military uniform and fighting Israeli army forces in Rafah, where he was killed during clashes between infantry forces in the Tal Sultan neighborhood of Rafah.

However, no confirmation was issued by the Hamas Movement yet.

On August 6, 2024, Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the 7th of October incidents last year, was chosen by the movement to be the head of the movement’s political bureau, succeeding Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated by an Israeli raid on his residence in the Iranian capital Tehran.

Sinwar was born on October 19, 1962, in the Khan Yunis refugee camp after Israelis displaced his family from the city of Majdal Asqalan in 1948.

He was one of the key leaders in Hamas and was close to the late Hamas Leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who had tasked him with establishing the Jihad and Da'wa Organization (Majd).

In 1982, Sinwar was arrested for six months in Far'a prison due to his resistance activities. Six years later in 1988, Israel re-arrested him and handed down him four life sentences. He was kept in Israeli prisons for 23, including four years in solitary confinement. During his imprisonment, Sinwar and other Palestinian detainees led a series of hunger strikes, the most prominent of which had taken place in 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004.

He obtained a bachelor's degree in Arabic language at the Islamic University of Gaza and obtained.  Additionally, he was fluent in Hebrew and had many political and security publications and translations.

After he was released from an Israeli prison in the 2011 Gilaat Shalit prisoner swap deal, Sinwar married in 2012 and had three children, two boys and a girl (Ibrahim, Abdullah, and Reda).