Hamas' chief Sinwar killed 'by chance' in Gaza
Israeli forces in Gaza killed Hamas' top 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 in a battle, only to discover afterwards that a body in the rubble was the man Israel has hunted for more than a year.
Sinwar has topped Israel's most wanted list since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war just over a year ago, and his killing strikes a powerful blow to the militant group. There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas of his death.
The military confirmed Sinwar's death after conducting DNA and other tests on a body that it said was among three militants killed Wednesday during operations in Gaza. Foreign Minister Katz called Sinwar's killing a "military and moral achievement for the Israeli army," saying it would "create the possibility to immediately release the hostages."
Sinwar was one of the chief architects of Hamas' attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel has vowed to kill him since the beginning of its retaliatory campaign in Gaza. He has been Hamas' top leader inside the Gaza Strip for years, closely connected to its military wing while dramatically building up its capabilities.
An Israeli security official said it appeared that the man who turned out to be Sinwar was killed in a battle, not in a planned targeted airstrike.
Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said Sinwar’s killing sends “a clear message to the residents of Gaza. The man who brought disaster and death to the Gaza strip, the man who made you suffer as a result of his murderous actions — the end of this man has come.”
Photos of Sinwar published by Israeli media show a man wearing a bulletproof vest, surrounded by grenades, lying in the rubble of a building with a head wound. He was not surrounded by hostages or using them as human shields when he was killed.
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 Israeli news site N12 said Sinwar appears to have been killed by chance in a battle on Wednesday.
Sinwar was killed in Rafah on Wednesday after an Israeli tank launched a shell at a building, causing it to collapse. The soldiers were on a regular patrol in Gaza when they encountered a number of Hamas militants. They were not specifically searching for Sinwar.
As troops unearthed the dead militants, they noticed that one appeared to resemble Sinwar.
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.
President Joe Biden has been briefed on Israel's investigation into whether it killed Sinwar, and U.S. officials have been in close contact with Israeli officials throughout Thursday morning, according to a senior administration official.
Sinwar was chosen as Hamas' top leader in July after his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in an apparent Israeli strike in the Iranian capital Tehran. Israel has also claimed to have killed the head of Hamas' military wing Mohammed Deif in an airstrike, but the group has said he survived.
The report of his death came as Israeli forces continued a more than week-old major air and ground assault in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. On Thursday, an Israeli strike hit a school sheltering displaced Palestinians, killing at least 28 people, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Northern Gaza was the first target of Israel's ground invasion nearly a year ago and has suffered the heaviest destruction of the war, with entire neighborhoods in Gaza City and other towns reduced to rubble. Most of the population fled after Israel issued evacuation orders in the opening days of the war, but about 400,000 are believed to have remained despite the harsh conditions.
Earlier this month, Israel once again ordered the full-scale evacuation of the north, and allowed no food aid to enter the area for around two weeks. That led many Palestinians to fear that it had adopted a surrender-or-starve strategy suggested by former Israeli generals.
Israel allowed two shipments of aid to enter the north earlier this week after the United States warned it might reduce its military aid if its ally did not do more to address the humanitarian crisis.
Since the start of the conflict, Israeli forces have launched repeated operations into Jabaliya, a densely populated urban refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation. The military says militants have repeatedly regrouped there after major operations.
Source: Agence France Presse
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