Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was allegedly holding Israeli hostages as human shields, was allegedly killed in a clash with Israeli soldiers in a building in Gaza. It is noteworthy that there is not a single Israeli hostage in the building where Sinwar is said to have been killed. Israel debunked its own “human shield” thesis.
The Israeli army said it is investigating the possibility that one of the three men it killed in a clash in Gaza was Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
The New York Times, citing US officials, reported that Israel has informed the US that Sinwar may have been killed.
“At this time, the identity of the terrorists cannot be confirmed,” the Israeli army said in a statement. The army said there were no hostages in the area where the three were killed. Israeli officials and the Israeli media claimed that Sinwar was hiding among the hostages and using them as human shields.
Channel 12 reported that Israeli soldiers opened fire on a group of “terrorists” on the ground floor of a building yesterday, and that when the soldiers entered the building, they realized that one of the three men killed looked very similar to Sinvar.
Israeli media reported that the final identification is expected to take several hours.
From Israeli prisons to leading Hamas
Yahya Sinwar was considered Hamas’ number two man after the head of the political bureau, Ismail Heniyye. However, he was the de facto leader of the organization, both because of his presence in Gaza and because he headed the team that planned October 7. After his assassination in Tehran, this de facto leadership turned into an official one. Sinwar became the head of Hamas’ political bureau.
Sinwar, whom Israel has declared an ‘enemy of the state’, is at the top of the Israeli army’s wanted list. In 2015, he was added to the US list of wanted international terrorists.
Sinwar spent 23 years in Israeli prisons, from his arrest in 1988 until the major prisoner swap deal in 2011. Israel released 1,027 prisoners in exchange for the release of Gilat Shalit, a Hamas soldier held hostage for five years. Sinwar was one of these prisoners.
Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an attack last October by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.
More than 42,400 people have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 99,100 injured, according to local health authorities.
The Israeli onslaught has displaced almost the entire population of the Gaza Strip amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.
Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its actions in Gaza.
