What to know about Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader Israel declared dead?

BEIRUT (AP) — Yahya Sinwar was the instigator of an attack on Israel that shocked the world and triggered an ever-widening catastrophe with no end in sight.

In GazaNo figure played a greater role in determining the course of the war than the 61-year-old Hamas leader. Obsessive, disciplined and dictatorial, he was a rarely seen veteran militant who learned Hebrew and carefully studied his enemy over the years he spent in Israeli prisons.

On Thursday, Israel said Troops in Gaza killed Sinwar. There was no immediate confirmation of his death from Hamas.

The mysterious figure, feared on both sides of the battle lines, launched the surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, along with even more sinister ones Mohammed DeifHead of Hamas’ armed wing. Israel said that it killed Deif In an airstrike in July in the southern Gaza Strip, in which more than 70 Palestinians were killed.

Soon after, the exiled Hamas leader stated, Ismail HaniyehHe was killed in an explosion while visiting Iran that was blamed on Israel. Sinwar was Then he decided to take his place as Hamas’ supreme leader, despite being in hiding in Gaza.

Palestinian militants who carried out the October 2023 attack killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped about 250 others, surprising Israel’s military and intelligence establishment and shattering the image of Israeli invincibility.

Israel’s retaliation was devastating. The conflict has killed over 42,000 Palestinians widespread destruction in Gaza and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless many on the verge of starvation.

Sinwar has conducted indirect negotiations with Israel try to end it the war. One of his goals was to secure the release of thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, similar to the deal that led to his release more than a decade ago.

He continued working brings Hamas closer to Iran and its other allies in the region. The war it sparked attracted Hezbollah, which eventually led to another Israeli invasion of Lebanon and led to Iran and Israel directly colliding with each other for the first time, raising fears of an even larger conflict.

For the Israelis, Sinwar was a nightmarish figure. Israeli army chief spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari called him a murderer “who proved to the whole world that Hamas is worse than ISIS,” referring to the Islamic State group.

Always defiant, Sinwar ended one of his few public speeches by calling on Israel to assassinate him and declaring in Gaza, “After this meeting, I will go home.” He then shook hands and took selfies with people on the street.

He was respected among Palestinians for standing up to Israel and staying in the impoverished Gaza Strip, unlike other Hamas leaders who lived more comfortably abroad.

But he was also deeply feared because of his iron grip in Gaza, where public dissent is suppressed.

Unlike the media-friendly personalities cultivated by some of Hamas’ political leaders, Sinwar never attempted to build a public image. He was dubbed the “Butcher of Khan Younis” for his brutal treatment of Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel.

Sinwar was born in Gaza’s Khan Younis refugee camp in 1962 to a family that was among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians expelled from what is now Israel over time the war of 1948 that surrounded its creation.

He was an early member of Hamaswhich emerged from the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1987, when the coastal enclave was under Israeli military occupation.

Sinwar convinced the group’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, that in order for Hamas to succeed as a resistance organization, it must be rid of informants for Israel. They formed a security division, then known as Majd, headed by Sinwar.

He was arrested by Israel in the late 1980s and admitted under interrogation that he had killed twelve suspected collaborators. He was ultimately sentenced to four life sentences for crimes including the kidnapping and killing of two Israeli soldiers.

Michael Koubi, a former head of the Shin Bet investigative department who interrogated Sinwar, recalled the confession that stood out to him the most: Sinwar said he forced a man to bury his own brother alive because he was suspected to work for Israel.

“His eyes were full of happiness when he told us this story,” Koubi said.

But to his fellow prisoners, Sinwar was charismatic, outgoing and smart, and open to prisoners of all political factions.

He became the leader of the hundreds of imprisoned Hamas members. He organized strikes to improve conditions. He learned Hebrew and studied Israeli society. He was known for feeding his fellow prisoners and preparing kunafa, a treat made from shredded dough filled with cheese.

“As a prison leader, he had experience in negotiations and dialogue, and he understood the enemy’s mentality and how to influence him,” said Anwar Yassine, a Lebanese citizen who spent about 17 years in Israeli prisons, most of his time with him Sinwar.

Yassine noted that Sinwar always treated him with respect, even though he belonged to the Lebanese Communist Party, whose secular principles contradicted Hamas’ ideology.

During his years in prison, Sinwar wrote a 240-page novel called Thistle and the Cloves. It tells the story of Palestinian society from the 1967 Middle East war to the beginning of the second intifada in 2000.

“This is neither my personal story nor the story of any particular person, although all incidents are true,” Sinwar wrote at the beginning of the novel.

In 2008, Sinwar survived an aggressive form of brain cancer after treatment at a Tel Aviv hospital.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released him in 2011 along with about 1,000 other prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in a cross-border raid. Netanyahu has faced sharp criticism for releasing dozens of prisoners held for involvement in deadly attacks.

Back in Gaza, Sinwar coordinated closely between Hamas’ political leadership and its military wing, the Qassam Brigades. He also cultivated a reputation for ruthlessness. He is widely believed to be behind the unprecedented killing of another top Hamas commander, Mahmoud Ishtewi, in 2016 in an internal power struggle.

He also married after his release.

In 2017, he was elected head of Hamas’ political bureau in Gaza. Sinwar worked with Haniyeh to reorient the group toward Iran and its allies, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah. He also focused on building Hamas’s military power.