Surprise Battlefield Encounter Led to Hamas Leader’s Death

(No he wasn't hiding in a 'tunnel'. No he wasn't surrounded by hostages. He was out there fighting for what he believed in. Could you imagine Netanyahu doing that? No? Of course not. Because he's a coward who believes in nothing.)

from the NYT

It was a routine patrol for a unit of Israeli soldiers in the southern Gaza Strip. Then a firefight erupted and the Israelis, backed by drones, destroyed part of a building where several militants had taken cover, Israeli officials said.

When the dust cleared and they began searching the building, the soldiers found a body that bore a striking resemblance to someone they had not expected to find, a man their country had been hunting for since Oct. 7, 2023: Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas.

For more than a year, as tens of thousands of Gazans were killed, Mr. Sinwar had eluded the full force of Israel’s military and security establishment, which had dedicated every means at its disposal to finding and killing him. Many believed he was hiding underground in Gaza and had surrounded himself with hostages taken from Israel.

In the end, the Israeli officials said, he was killed above ground on Wednesday, alongside two other militants, with no sign of hostages nearby. The Israeli authorities said they had confirmed his death on Thursday, using dental records and fingerprints. His DNA was also tested for confirmation, according to one Israeli official and the White House...

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Hamas leader Sinwar wants a ceasefire deal, mediators say, but Netanyahu’s stance unclear

from CNN

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar wants a ceasefire deal — at least, that’s the message Egyptian and Qatari mediators have conveyed to Israeli officials in recent days ahead of a critical summit later this week, an Israeli source familiar with the matter said.

Whether the Israeli prime minister wants one remains shrouded in uncertainty.

Netanyahu’s allies have told journalists and other government officials that the Israeli prime minister is ready to make a deal, regardless of the impact on his governing coalition, two Israeli sources said. But the Israeli security establishment remains considerably more skeptical of Netanyahu’s willingness to strike a deal given fierce opposition from far-right ministers in his coalition...

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What message is Hamas sending by naming Yahya Sinwar as its leader?

(Here is the message being sent by Hamas: If you are going to kill our more peaceful leaders while looking for a resolution to this conflict, we will replace them with some... less peaceful ones. 

In other words: We don't negotiate with terrorists)

from TRT News

Hamas announces Yahya Sinwar new politburo chief

from al Mayadeen English

According to a statement by Hamas, the Palestinian resistance movement, Yahya Sinwar will serve as its new political leader, succeeding martyred Ismail Haniyeh.

"The Hamas Islamic Resistance movement has announced the election of Yahya al-Sinwar as head of the movement's political office to replace the murdered Ismail Haniyeh."

In a statement, the Hamas Movement said, "After in-depth and extensive consultations and deliberations in our leadership institutions, brother leader Yahya Sinwar was chosen as head of the political bureau."...

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The philosophy of Hamas in the writings of Yahya Sinwar

 

from Mondoweiss

The following was originally published in Arabic in Babelwad, titled “The Philosophy of Hamas: Politics and Existence According to Yahya Sinwar,” by Haneen Odetallah.

“We must enter Sinwar’s mind” is the slogan of the current phase in the “Israeli” media, which continues to broadcast loud condemnations after Yahya Sinwar, the head of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in Gaza, carried out the greatest military-intelligence deception in their entity’s history. Sinwar surprised them in a battle named “Al-Aqsa Flood,” but its real headline is that of Palestinian prisoners, to whom Sinwar has remained loyal — being a former prisoner himself who was liberated in a prisoner swap called the “Loyalty of the Free” deal.

Sinwar spent 23 years of his life in prison, including four years in solitary confinement, but he did not waste any of those years. He learned Hebrew and everything he could about his enemy, even formulating and executing a long-term intelligence plan from behind bars, which at the time was far-reaching. Sinwar studied and thought extensively, and he also wrote. Although we need not “enter Sinwar’s mind,” I believe that we, too, should at least “get to know his thinking,” to use a less intrusive expression. 

But what might be easier than “entering Sinwar’s mind” is to read the writings he undertook after years of isolation, contemplation, and study...

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