Israeli forces in Gaza killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a chief architect of last year’s attack on Israel that sparked the war, the military said Thursday. Troops appeared to have run across him unknowingly in a battle, only to discover afterwards that a body in the rubble was Israel’s most wanted man.
Israeli leaders celebrated his killing as a settling of scores just over a year after Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 250 others in an attack that stunned the country. They also presented it as a turning point in the campaign to destroy Hamas, urging the group to surrender and release some 100 hostages still in Gaza.
“Hamas will no longer rule Gaza. This is the start of the day after Hamas," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
U.S. officials expressed hopes for a cease-fire with Sinwar out of the picture. But eliminating him may not end the devastating war, during which Israel destroyed much of the Gaza Strip and killed more than 42,000 Palestinians. The Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half of those killed were women and children.
Sinwar's death is a crippling blow to Hamas, but the group has proven resilient to past losses of leaders. There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas of Sinwar’s death.
Netanyahu has said Israel will keep fighting until all the hostages are free, and that it will keep control over Gaza long enough to ensure Hamas does not rearm — an effective occupation that raises the possibility of months or even years of continued fighting.
Earlier this month Israel opened a new front in its war with Hezbollah, stepping up bombardment in Lebanon and launching a ground campaign against the Iran-backed militia after a year of trading cross-border fire.
In his speech about Sinwar's death, Netanyahu said, “Our war is not yet ended.”
President Joe Biden called Sinwar's death a “good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world,” and he said it opens the way for "a political settlement that provides a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.” He said he would talk with Netanyahu "to discuss the pathway for bringing the hostages home to their families, and for ending this war once and for all.”
Sinwar has been Hamas’ top leader inside the Gaza Strip for years, closely connected to its military wing while dramatically building up its capabilities. He was elevated to Hamas’ highest spot in July after his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in an apparent Israeli strike in the Iranian capital Tehran.
In the past months, Israel has eliminated a string of senior figures from Hamas and Hezbollah with airstrikes. Israel has claimed to have killed the head of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, but the group has said he survived.
But in Sinwar's case, troops found him by chance.
An Israeli military official said that Sinwar "engaged in combat” with Israeli troops operating in Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah, and was spotted running into a building. The army struck the building with tank fire.
The army had suspected a number of top Hamas officials including Sinwar were in the vicinity, but Sinwar was not the target of that day's specific operations, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity under military briefing rules.
Visiting the site of the killing, Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi said that while the military had conducted “many special operations in this war where we had excellent information .... Here, we didn’t have that and the response was very, very strong.”
Photos circulating online showed the body of a man resembling Sinwar with a gaping head wound, dressed in a military-style vest, half buried in the rubble of a destroyed building. The security official confirmed the photos were taken by Israeli security officials at the scene. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
The military said three militants were killed in the operation. Police said one of them was confirmed as Sinwar by dental records and fingerprints and DNA tests. Sinwar was imprisoned by Israel from the late 1980s until 2011, and during that time he underwent treatment for brain cancer – leaving Israeli authorities with extensive medical records.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant addressed Hamas fighters, saying it “is time to go out, release the hostages, raise your hands, surrender.”
Netanyahu said Israel had “settled its account” with the man behind the Oct. 7 attack, and that “evil has suffered a heavy blow.” But, he added, “the task before us is not yet complete.”
He said anyone in Hamas who surrendered weapons and assisted with the return of the hostages would be allowed to leave Gaza safely. About a third of the captives still in Gaza are believed to be dead.
Hundreds of people demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Thursday night for the release of the hostages after news of Sinwar’s death emerged. Some carried signs that read “Sinwar’s end, end the war.”
Ifat Kalderon, whose cousin, Ofer Kalderon, is being held hostage in Gaza, said he was happy that Sinwar was dead but "scared about the 101 hostages…. They might murder them or do something because of the murder of Sinwar.”
In the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, one Palestinian woman displaced from her home in the north said she hoped Sinwar's death would bring an end to Israel's campaign. “What more goals do they have than that? Enough. We want to go back,” said the woman, Umm Mohammed.
Some praised Sinwar as a symbol of resistance against Israel's decades-long occupation of the Palestinians in the West Bank. Ahmed Hamdouna, who also fled his home in northern Gaza, said Hamas would be able to replace him. "After the leader, a thousand leaders will come. After the man, a thousand men will come,” he said.
For more than a week. Israeli forces have been waging a ground campaign in Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, saying they are battling Hamas fighters who have once again regrouped there.
On Thursday, an Israeli strike hit a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Jabaliya, killing at least 28 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Fares Abu Hamza, head of the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency unit in the north, said the dead included a woman and four children.
The Israeli military said it targeted a command center run by Hamas and Islamic Jihad inside the school. It provided a list of around a dozen names of people it identified as militants who were present when the strike was called in. It was not immediately possible to verify the names.
Israel has repeatedly struck tent camps and schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza. The Israeli military says it carries out precise strikes on militants and tries to avoid harming civilians, but its strikes often kill women and children.
AP writers Jack Jeffery in Jerusalem and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
42 Comments
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Capuchin
Monkeys on type writers. Churn your way through over 20,000 innocent women and children and you finally get your man.
No signs of any hostages in the vicinity either which totally discredits another piece of Israeli propaganda.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-knows-where-hamas-leader-is-but-wont-strike-because-of-hostages-reports/
Chabbawanga
If removing the leadership of Hamas meant the end to this conflict then I would be applauding this victory, but the fact is that there are plenty of Sinwars ilk groomed to fill his role. His death, like a dog according to zionists, has made him yet another martyr. Personally, I think broadcasting the drone footage of his death was misguided. The guy was blasted to pieces with only one arm, and he still had the willpower left to throw a metal rod at the drone. Hardly heroic, but certainly defiant.
No love lost here though, apparently the guy was the brains behind operation Al Aqsa Flood and was therefore responsible for the warcrimes that were committed during the operation, intentional or not.
I hope this brings the conflict one step closer to an end.
JeffLee
They found him in a regular-looking house. This is why Israel so often targets residential areas, because that is where the terrorists hide, using civilians as human shields.
Zaphod
sakurasuki
The accountability is with Sinwar. He did not need to order the Oct 7 massacre, and later he could have surrendered and released the hostages. Note also that the death figures you see in the media come from the "Gaza ministry of health", aka from Hamas.
bass4funk
I am and how did that work out for them? Where are they now? Why are The Mullahs worried? I thought they love martyrdom?
Admitted, a mistake that will never happen.
According to whom? Which source?
Zaphod
Chabbawanga
Pretty effective against hippies at a music festival and unarmed local farmers (remember, Bibi passed American style gun laws, fundamentally disarming them. Not like Kibbuzzers of the old days).
I understand there was hardly any Israeli military in the area at the time, only electronic surveillance.
OK, if only that is your conspiracy theory, I give it some credibility. Bibi was in big legal trouble at the time, and an Israel 9-11 type event would certainly make that go away. Personally I do not believe it, but I am agnostic on that. But there is some other wild conspiracy talk out there, including that the whole event was staged by Bibi. I suspected you were in that camp, Sorry, misunderstanding.
stormcrow
karma
Chabbawanga
Since Hamas was established, Israel has assassinated dozens of high ranking political and militant figures. The resistance continues. The same can be said for Hezbollah. Sure it is possible that Israel gets some breathing room, but you cant kill an idea. You simply cant.
NB
I hope that a sane and moderate Palestinian leadership will rise up, which cares for their people and for its national interests, but is also ready and willing for coexistence with the other nation. It is time for solving the conflict and for ending its horrors, and for bringing in a new age of peace and prosperity.
bass4funk
You can drive a car with 3 wheels depending on the circumstances, but is it easy or comfortable as having all 4?
Again, and what happened to the power structure? Pretty much all terminated, so that incident won’t happen again.
And the leaders are on notice, one by one that threat will diminish as well.
That’s up for the people to decide and take their destiny back in their own hands, but supporting Hamas has not been productive for them.
bass4funk
Ok, so one source.
Wasabi
Good news, one less terrorist.
u_s__reamer
So who's now left in the ranks of Hamas to negotiate the return of the remaining hostages of October 7 and the release of 10,000+? Palestinians held in Israeli torture camps before and since the Hamas act of resistance against the Israeli occupiers in the form of the "Al-Aqsa Flood" military operation?
burgers and beers
Most will not have an issue with Hamas leader being taken out , it is the tens of thousands of civilian casualties that have turned so many against Israel.
Chabbawanga
Yet, Hamas and HEzbollah have continued to operate. In fact just last year Hamas was capable of carrying out their most deadly attack against Israel in history. Hezbollah continues to bombard the north of Israel, forcing thousands to flee south.
Oh, please please provide your hot take on the West Bank.
Chabbawanga
Remember when Hamas, a rabble militia walked straight across one of the most heavily surveilled borders in the world and carried out the most devastating acts in Israeli history. At least try to be consistent.
stormcrow
“Whatever a man sows he shall also reap.”
(Galatians 6:7)
Billot
John
LOL: those antisemites are simply showing their faces aboveground now (including some regulars here), that is all that has changed. Now we know who they are is all.
Fortunately for the Jews in Israel and around the world, and for proud Zionists everywhere, Israel has started (FINALLY!) to IGNORE what the global useful idiots for Hamas think, and DEFEND its people.
Given a choice between being DEAD and having sympathy, or being ALIVE and being despised, WE WILL CHOOSE TO BE ALIVE thank you very much!
John
So Israel is safer now? I hope those citizens can feel calm and happy. And the cost? Not the financial one but the fact that whereas there probably used to be millions of anti-semitics around the globe there are now probably literally billions of people who despise Israel with a vengeance for what has been perpetrated against the Palestinian people over the last year.
bass4funk
It absolutely has worked. How many of senior leadership was killed again? Eleven?
Oh, really?
With the help of intel, you kidding me. If you think the Mossad and the IDF are idiots, let’s look at the scoreboard. Remember the pagers a few weeks ago, over a thousand lost their eyesights more lost their hands and fingers, hundreds with internal injuries. Every time they kill one Israeli, the Israelis will kill 3 of theirs.
Hmmm
Not sure, but I think the two-State solution debacle will never come to fruition. It just will never happen. That puts the Palestinians in a very bad predicament. Time for new leadership, obviously Hamas has done more damage than anything else for these people.
Zaphod
Chabbawanga
This well-armed and fanatical "rabble militia" actually filmed what they were doing and bragged about it. Are you suggesting a conspiracy theory?
Chabbawanga
I take it this only applies to the side you dont like
Billot
sakurasuki
ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. HAMAS needs to be taken to account for their full RESPONSIBILITY
You are right on the mark!
The 40k deaths (most of which are HAMAS fighters actually) is on Hamas' shoulders. Those who were civilians put directly and purposefully in harms way by Hamas have had some justice served today.
Bless the IDF for serving that justice!
Alfie Noakes
Sinwar's apparent death would be significant if Israel's aim was the destruction of Hamas, but it isn't. Israel's aim is a genocide and ethnic cleansing to create a Greater Israel via the annexation of Gaza, the West Bank, South Lebanon and more. The mass murder, bombing of hospitals, deliberate starving of millions, shooting children in their heads will all continue and the Resistance will continue to resist.
Tamarama
So he will be replaced by another leader, it's a nothing achievement.
In the meantime, the killing from the last 12 months will scar a generation of Palestinian and Lebanese kids and young men so badly that they will be falling over themselves to sign up to fight the oppressors, be that with Hamas, Hezbollah or whoever. Israel can't eliminate Hamas, because Hamas are the Palestinian people - the symptom of their systematic abuse and oppression and the human resistance to it as a result. That is a very normal human response.
Israel and the Pro-Israeli western media try to trivialise them by calling them terrorists, a kind of over simplified George W Bush-ism, but the reality is way more nuanced than that. People are always going to try to rise up against tyranny - that doesn't make them a terrorist, it makes them a freedom fighter.
bass4funk
Wrong, it’s a massive achievement. Definitely worth celebrating. Will they replace him, they absolutely will, but given the fact that most of the senior fighters that were involved were killed off, it’s harder to stage a massive strategic attack and that will remain so for a number of years to come.
And the IDF will be there to usher them the same fate
Oh, they know they can’t eradicate a movement, but the Jihadists can’t and will never eradicate the Israelis from their land, it just won’t happen, they Jihadists continue to try and they lose each and every time.
When you swoop in, kill, willfully rape women, decapitate babies, kill elderly, hold people hostage and torture them for fun, pleasure, that makes you a terrorist and on borrowed time under the Israeli timeline.
If they’re fighting for freedom, why would they not give their own people freedom and why would they take away their humanitarian aid that comes in from all over the world? Let’s start from there.
Sanjinosebleed
Propaganda puff price to give the war criminals a way out of the mass slaughter they have carried out .
Chabbawanga
But historically that hasnt worked. And as we have seen as clear as day, Israel doesnt focus on just killing the leadership. even the killing of Sinwar was incidental. He just happened to be in a building they bombed. Not to mention the continued expansion of illegal settlements and state-sponsored settler violence in the West Bank.
To date Israels strategy of illegal incarceration, forced eviction, occupation, apartheid, blockade, assassination, murder, and dehumanisation of Palestinians has never worked, ever. What makes you confident it will work now?
Chabbawanga
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/17/world/middleeast/sinwar-israeli-intelligence.html
Chabbawanga
you crack me up sometimes
Chabbawanga
No problem. That conspiracy is absurd. I am definitely not in that camp.
u_s__reamer
The death of Sinwar gives Biden an excuse to make the phone-call that the world has waited a year for: time to stop the mass-slaughter and the razing of the Gaza Ghetto. This will be the Americans' and Zionists' last, best chance to stop their genocidal destruction before the verdicts come down from the ICJ and ICC, but it's now too late to avoid the verdict of history that will record a Holocaust perpetrated against defenseless civilian populations, a heinous policy of sadistic cruelty that will damn the name of the apartheid ethno-state and its enablers for eternity.
bass4funk
Yes
And the IDF is waiting
You don’t need to, but if killing these radicals gives me 4-8 years of peace that’s more than worth eliminating these radicals.
You don’t need to, just continue to kill the leadership NOT the soldier, then you’ll see success.
Chabbawanga
For the record, I agree with your statement about Mossad and Israeli intelligence, they are incredibly advanced, which is why I think they let October 7th happen. Unpopular take. However, from what I have been able to glean about the death of Sinwar, he was killed in a strike against a Hamas target, and his presence was only uncovered afterwards, first by drone, second by IDF recruits. Of course Im happy to be enlightened.
Chabbawanga
Well-armed... AKs, RPGs, and video cameras. Compared to any modern military they are vastly inferior.
As for October 7th, there is no doubt that horriric acts were commited against civilians and Israeli military alike.
The conspiracy is how did it happen? How did the worlds most advanced security organizations fail to act? There have been multiple reports that they knew an attack was planned, even knew the targets. Other reports share that border security forces reportes suspicious activity, but their information fell on deaf ears. Something stinks.
GDBD
So who we should get the numbers from? From mass murdering Zionist ministry of Death?
sakurasuki
One evil goes down, however it doesn't mean accountability for 40 thousands deaths will go away.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/un-believes-40-000-gaza-death-toll-may-be-undercount/3305194
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/15/gaza-death-toll-hits-40000-with-thousands-more-yet-to-be-counted
.
After all nobody should immune to justice right?
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/9/bolivia-joins-south-africas-icj-genocide-case-against
owzer
Oh no! Sinmore wont be around to Find Out anymore!
lolz good game ez
bass4funk
Sinwar didn’t want to die. He tried to negotiate a safe passage out of Gaza
But dead still nonetheless.
Oh, really?
I beg to differ, heroic and this will give Israel some breathing room for a few years and to bring anyone to a level where Sinwar was at as a terrorist will take years to develop. So this is a beautiful day for Israel. And The Mullah’s are on notice as well, they continue with this, they’re next on the cleanup list, even they are growing more concerned and thinking about possible contingency plans just in case.
Chabbawanga
You are convincing noone at this point.
Aly Rustom
Exactly! Well said Alfie!
THIS!!!
GDBD
Wish the same for zionists that terrorize Palestinians. Foremost to the Demonyahu.