After liquidation of Ismail Hanija, for the new political leader of the terrorist group Hamas Yahya Sinvar was appointed. He is believed to be the organizer of the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, it says Deutsche says.
The radical Islamic organization Hamas has a new political leader. Yahya Sinwar was appointed to that position, it was confirmed by the Palestinian organization. He will succeed Ismail Haniya as head of the Hamas politburo, who was killed in last week's Israeli attack in Tehran.
Sinvar is believed to be the organizer of the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas on October 7 last year in southern Israel. That operation was the reason for the start of the war in the Gaza Strip. About 1.200 people were killed in the Hamas operation, and several hundred Israelis were kidnapped.
In the previous Israeli operations in Gaza, according to Palestinian allegations that are impossible to independently verify, around 40.000 Palestinians have been killed. The appointment of Sinwar as the head of Hamas is considered by observers as a move that Israel will interpret as a provocation.
It is unclear how this appointment will affect the current situation in the region, where a new war threatens to break out. After the liquidation of Hania, Iran announced a revenge action against Israel, and the Israelis have already announced a counterattack - if Tehran decides to take that step. Escalation, it is assumed, could have consequences not only for that region, but for the whole world.
Where is Sinvar located?
After the massacre in October last year, Sinwar operated from underground. "Only God knows" where he is, that's how Osama Hamdan, one of the high-ranking Hamas officials he spoke with in Beirut, answered a question about Sinwar by a journalist from the German public service ARD a few months ago.
The new head of Hamas is probably in an undisclosed location in the Gaza Strip. He is believed to be hiding in Hamas tunnels under the Palestinian coastal area. His predecessor, Haniya, lived in the Qatari capital, Doha, and had the status of the supreme diplomat of Hamas. American sources state that Sinwar could be somewhere in the tunnels under Khan Yunis.
Sinvar's goal is clear: he wants to destroy the Jewish state. "Yahja must always count on killing him." And we have to too," said Hamdan.
Sinwar, as Hamdan claims, wants an end to the Israeli occupation: not only of East Jerusalem, but also of the entire West Bank. When he talks about "the end of the occupation", Hamdan means the whole of Palestine, which according to Hamas' interpretation de facto means the destruction of Israel in its current form.
Underground leader
Sinwar, a man referred to by his like-minded friends only by his first name, disappeared from public view after October 7, but as the undisputed leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, he played a key role in the terror group. From underground, he continued to control the Islamist militia, i.e. what remained of it after the start of the Israeli operation. According to the German ARD, he also had the last word when making a decision on whether Hamas will accept a possible truce in Gaza, which the Israelis have intensively bombarded for months - or not.
Little is known about Sinvar. He was born in 1962 in Gaza. He became a member of Hamas in 1987, immediately after the founding of that group. He was arrested by the Israelis in 1988 and sentenced to four life sentences for allegedly single-handedly killing two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinian collaborators. He has been one of the most wanted members of Hamas in Israel for years and is at the very top of the "kill list".
Organizer of terror
Sinwar spent more than two decades behind bars. He was released in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange. Six years later, he was appointed as head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The man also known as Abu Ibrahim or the "Butcher of Khan Yunis" was Hamas' number 2 for years - and Ismail Haniyeh's right-hand man.
Under his baton, Hamas became even more radical than it already was. It was Sinwar who intensified his contacts with Iran in recent years, and "hooked" Hamas to the so-called "Axis of Resistance". At the same time, with the help of Tehran, he additionally equipped his organization militarily.
"Zionists all over the world should know: woe to those who touch our Al-Aqsa Mosque," he used to say during public appearances in the Gaza Strip. Or sentences like this: "Netanyahu will curse the day his mother gave birth to him."
At the very beginning of the war in Gaza, the Israeli army labeled Sinwar and his closest associates as "Dead man walking", people who are practically "the walking dead". It was Sinwar who orchestrated the terrorist attack on October 7, said the Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli Army Herzi Halevi, adding that they will find him and kill him.
It is interesting that the Israelis have already saved the life of the 61-year-old Sinvar. When he got cancer in prison, the doctors helped him defeat the evil disease. And when the Israelis asked him if he was grateful for that, he reportedly replied, "No, it's your duty."
