Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, has been killed, Israel has confirmed after it conducted biometric testing.
In contrast to Israel’s notable intelligence successes of the past several weeks, Sinwar appears to have met his demise entirely by chance. He was killed, alongside two other Hamas terrorists on Wednesday, though Israelis did not realize it was Sinwar until a day later.
He was killed in Rafah above ground and no hostages were found nearby, despite the widespread belief he was hiding underground in Hamas’s elaborate network of tunnels underneath Gaza surrounded by hostages.
Eliminated: Yahya Sinwar.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 17, 2024
Sinwar was considered to be the mastermind behind Hamas’s mass terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that ignited the current conflicts across the region. Members of Hamas murdered roughly 1,200 people, hundreds of whom were attending an outdoor music festival at the time of the attack, and they kidnapped roughly 250 other people.
Israeli officials had vowed to kill or capture Sinwar and other Hamas leaders who planned and carried out the attack.
Sinwar was believed to be one of the last remaining living Hamas leaders responsible for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack. It’s unclear who will succeed him as the leader of the group both in Gaza and abroad; such has been Israel’s success in targeting senior leadership. Among the surviving Hamas leaders living outside Gaza, the most likely candidate could be Khaled Mashal, a founder of Hamas and former chairman of its political bureau.
His death could finally pave the way for Israel and Hamas agreeing to a deal that would see the remaining hostages freed from Gaza and end the war. On the other hand, the lack of clear leadership could make negotiations harder.
There are roughly 100 hostages believed to still be held by Hamas, about a third of whom are presumed dead.
Sinwar’s final location of Rafah is particularly notable. The Biden administration and several other foreign governments had urged Israel not to conduct ground operations in southern Gaza, Rafah in particular, due to the influx of displaced Palestinian civilians in the area. Six of the Israeli hostages were murdered and their bodies were found in Rafah in late August. Disagreements between the Biden administration and Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over Rafah contributed to a fraying of relations between the two normally staunch allies.
Israeli forces have wiped out several Hamas leaders over the war and more recently turned their primary focus to Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based U.S.-designated terrorist group that has also carried out continuous attacks on Israel’s northern front. Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in airstrikes over the last several weeks. Hamas and Hezbollah are both proxies for Iran, the true malevolent power in the Middle East.
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