The Israeli foreign ministry confirmed that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed on Thursday, October 17, during an operation in Tel al-Sultan area in Rafah. The military stated that Sinwar may have been struck in an operation aimed at three militants.
The Israeli military and intelligence services have since been working to identify whether the body is indeed Sinwar’s through DNA analysis. Preliminary results turned out to be positive, according to sources from Al-Arabiya.
The Israeli army released photos from the operation that targeted Yahya Sinwar in the Tel al-Sultan area of Rafah. Images of what appears to be Sinwar’s body also circulated on social media and in the Israeli press.
Israeli media also reported that Hamas leaders Mahmoud Hamdan and Hani Humaidan were also killed alongside Sinwar.
Israel has also notified U.S. military officials about the about the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, as they passed along photos of his dead body, a U.S. defense official said on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Al-Majd, a Hamas-affiliated website, urged Palestinians to await information about Sinwar directly from the group rather than from Israeli media. There are yet no comments from Hamas on Sinwar’s death.
Who is Yahya Sinwar
Born in the early 1960s in a Gaza Strip refugee camp, Sinwar became an active student leader and was closely associated with Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was assassinated by Israel in 2004.
As Hamas shifted from a religious movement to an armed group during the Palestinian uprising of the late 1980s, Sinwar played a key role in establishing its military wing.
In August, Hamas announced that Yahya Sinwar would lead the movement’s political bureau, taking over from Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in an attack in Tehran.
Sinwar spent a portion of his adult life in Israeli prisons before being released in a prisoner swap in 2011. He assumed leadership of the militant group in Gaza in 2017. Following the events of October 7, Israel labeled the “face of evil” and the mastermind behind the attacks.
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