People are reflected in a window displaying a poster of newly appointed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
Chris Mcgrath | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Thursday said Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed by Israel’s military forces.
“The elimination of Sinwar creates an opportunity for the immediate release of the hostages and a potential change that could lead to a new reality in Gaza—without Hamas and without Iranian control,” he said in a statement, according to NBC News.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a press statement that, although Sinwar’s death is “a significant milestone,” for Israel “the war is not yet over.”
“Hamas will no longer rule Gaza. This is the beginning of the day after Hamas, and this is an opportunity for you, the residents of Gaza, to finally break free from its tyranny,” Netanyahu said.
Earlier in the day, the Israel Defense Forces said they were investigating the “possibility” that Sinwar was among three militants killed in an operation in the Gaza Strip, whose identities they could not confirm at the time.
“It seems that Israel believes that killing our leaders means the end of our movement and the struggle of the Palestinian people,” a member of the Hamas political bureau said in a statement, according to NBC News reporting. “They can believe what they want, and this is not the first time they said that.”
In a press statement, President Joe Biden commended the news, adding that he would be speaking with Israeli officials. As the news broke, Biden was en route to Germany to meet with allied countries for talks on Ukraine and the Middle East.
Previously leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Sinwar, 62, assumed overall command of the Iran-backed organization in August, following the assassination of former political chief Ismail Haniyeh. Sinwar’s death marks the most dire blow Israel has dealt Hamas in the yearlong conflict sparked by the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7 terror attacks on the Jewish state, which Israel has accused Sinwar of orchestrating.
Yahya Sinwar, chief of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement in Gaza, delivers a speech during a rally marking “Jerusalem Day,” or Al-Quds Day.
Ahmed Zakot | Lightrocket | Getty Images
The offensive propelled the Israeli government of Netanyahu to launch a retaliatory operation in the Gaza Strip in a bid to dismantle the military capabilities and leadership of the Palestinian group.
More than 42,000 Palestinian people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, according to the local Health Ministry, while 101 people abducted from Israel are believed to remain hostages of Hamas in the enclave. The Hostages Families Forum, representing families of the captives, welcomed the Thursday news on social media, but urged the Israeli government to use this opportunity as leverage to secure the return of hostages.
It is unclear who would succeed Sinwar as leader of Hamas. Washington, which has been brokering talks between Israel and Hamas alongside Qatar and Egypt, indicated that Sinwar’s death could ease the resumption of stalled negotiations for a cease-fire.
The Hamas leader’s killing is a “seismic event that changes the nature of this conflict,” U.S. State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said, accusing the Hamas leader of having been “the chief obstacle” to securing a truce.
“Over the past few weeks, there have been no negotiations for an end to the war because Sinwar has refused to negotiate,” Miller said. “We now see an opportunity with him being removed from the battlefield, being removed from the leadership of Hamas, and we want to seize that opportunity.”
Since October last year, the war in the Gaza Strip has expanded to include direct hostilities between Israel and Iran, along with clashes between the Jewish state and other Tehran-backed factions, such as Yemen’s Houthis and Lebanese group Hezbollah — whose leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed last month by Israeli forces in an air attack in Beirut.
Markets have been mired in the Middle East conflict, which now poses substantial risks to oil supplies, if Israel answers the latest Iranian hostilities with strikes targeting Tehran’s energy infrastructure and export facilities.
Houthi maritime attacks against ships it claims are linked to Israel, the U.S. or the U.K. — which have also been carried out against unaffiliated vessels — have meanwhile disrupted a key commercial route in the Red Sea that links Asia-Pacific and the Mediterranean.
Leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip
Sinwar was born in a refugee camp in the Gaza enclave and spent at least 22 years of his adult life in Israeli prisons. He had been sentenced to life in 1989 for directing the killing of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians that he believed to be collaborators, having already made a name for himself as “the Butcher of Khan Yunis” for his hunting down of Palestinians he suspected to be working with Israel.
FILE PHOTO: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar looks on as Palestinian Hamas supporters take part in an anti-Israel rally over tension in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, in Gaza City October 1, 2022.
Mohammed Salem | Reuters
He was released early, however, in a highly controversial prisoner swap in 2011 that saw more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners exchanged for one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who had been abducted by Hamas five years prior.
Sinwar later said in interviews that he used his time in prison to learn to speak, read and write in Hebrew, and to understand the psychology and behavior of his Israeli captors. In 2015 he was designated a terrorist by the U.S. government.
The International Criminal Court in May said it was filing arrest warrant applications for Sinwar and Haniyeh for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It simultaneously filed arrest warrant applications for war crimes and crimes against humanity for Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.