Who is Yahya Sinwar and why is he a nightmare for Israeli military?

Yahya Sinwar is considered one of the most dreaded enemies of Israel for his uncompromising stance and his deep knowledge of Israeli society and its domestic politics.
Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar
Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar(Photo| AP)
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The Israeli military on Thursday claimed that it has killed Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar in an attack in Gaza. Sinwar was chosen as the top leader of Hamas after former chief Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated by Israel while visiting Iran. 

Yahya Sinwar is considered one of the most dreaded enemies of Israel for his uncompromising stance and his deep knowledge of Israeli society and its domestic politics.

Sinwar is considered to be the mastermind behind Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel known as 'Tufan al-Aqsa.' The attack killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 others, catching Israel’s military and intelligence establishment off guard and shattering the image of Israeli invincibility.

Israel's attacks on Gaza since then have claimed the lives of more than 42,000 Palestinians including more than 17,000 children and at least 11,400 women.

Yahya Sinwar was born in a refugee camp in Gaza's Khan Younis in 1962 after his family fled the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians surrounding the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

Sinwar was repeatedly arrested by Israel in the early 1980s, before the formation of Hamas, for his involvement in anti-occupation activism at the Islamic University in Gaza.

After his graduation, he helped establish a network of fighters to take up armed resistance against Israel. The group would later become the military wing of Hamas named after Izz ad-Din al-Qassam known as the 'Qassam Brigades.'

Yahya Sinwar joined the Hamas immidietly after it was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 1987. In 1988, Sinwar was arrested by Israel for alleged involvement in the capture and killing of two Israeli soldiers and four suspected Palestinian spies. He was sentenced to four life terms (equivalent of 426 years) in prison.

Sinwar spent 23 years in Israeli prison where he learnt Hebrew and studied the Israeli society and politics.

To fellow prisoners, Sinwar was charismatic, sociable and shrewd, open to detainees from all political factions.

He became the leader of the hundreds of imprisoned Hamas members. He organized strikes to improve conditions. He was known for feeding fellow inmates, making kunafa, a treat of shredded dough stuffed with cheese.

“Being a leader inside prison gave him experience in negotiations and dialogue, and he understood the mentality of the enemy and how to affect it,” said Anwar Yassine, a Lebanese citizen who spent about 17 years in Israeli jails, much of the time with Sinwar.

During his years in detention, Sinwar wrote a 240-page novel, “Thistle and the Cloves.” It tells the story of Palestinian society from the 1967 Mideast war until 2000 when the second intifada began.

“This is not my personal story, nor is it the story of a specific person, despite the fact that all the incidents are true,” Sinwar wrote in the novel’s opening.

In 2008, Sinwar survived an aggressive form of brain cancer while being in prison.

Sinwar was released in 2011 along with about 1,000 other prisoners in exchange for an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in a cross-border raid.

A year after his release, in 2012, Sinwar was elected to Hamas' political bureau and was tasked with coordinating with the Qassam Brigades.

Sinwar played a leading political and military role during Israel’s seven-week-long attack on Gaza in 2014. The next year, the United States labelled Sinwar as a “specially designated global terrorist”.

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

Always defiant, Sinwar ended one of his few public speeches by inviting Israel to assassinate him, proclaiming in Gaza, “I will walk back home after this meeting.” He then did so, shaking hands and taking selfies with people in the streets.

"We don't want war or fighting, because it costs lives...and our people deserve peace. For long periods, we tried peaceful and popular resistance. We expected that the world, free people and international organisations would stand by our people and stop occupation(Israel) from committing crimes and massacring our people. Unfortunately, the world stood by and watched," Yahya Sinwar said in an interview with Vice News in 2021.

When asked about the allegations of Hamas firing rockets into civilian areas in Israel and committing war crimes, Sinwar responded, "Israel-which possesses a complete arsenal of weaponry, state-of-the-art equipment and aircraft intentionally bombs and kills our women and children. They do that on purpose. You cant compare that to those who resist and defend themselves with weapons that look primitive in comparison."

"If we had the capability to launch precision missiles that targeted military targets we wouldn't have used the rockets that we did. We are forced to defend our people with what we have.. and this is what we have," he added.

“Does the world expect us to be well-behaved victims while we are being killed, for us to be slaughtered without making a noise?” Sinwar asked.

(With inputs from Associated Press)

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