Shinowar became Hamas’s top leader last July after the assassination of its previous leader, Ismail Haniyeh, who blamed Israel for the bombings in Iran.
Born in 1962 in a refugee camp in the Gaza city of Khan Younis, Shinowar was one of the first members of Hamas, formed in 1987, and headed the group’s security wing.
When Israel arrested him in the late 1980s, Sinwar confessed to killing 12 collaborators, a role that earned him the nickname “The Butcher of Khan Yunis”.
Shinovar was sentenced to four life sentences for crimes including the deaths of two Israeli soldiers, and while serving his sentence, he organized strikes in prisons to improve working conditions for prisoners.
Sinour, a self-employed student in the Hebrew and Israeli community, survived brain cancer in 2008 after being treated by Israeli doctors.
Sinour was one of more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners freed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2011 as part of an exchange for an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in a cross-border attack.
When Shinwar returned to Gaza, he quickly rose through the ranks of Hamas with a reputation for brutality.
He is believed to have been behind the 2016 assassination of another senior Hamas commander, Mahmoud Ishdewi, in an internal power struggle.
Shinowar became the head of Hamas in Gaza, effectively taking control of the movement and, along with Haniyeh, aligned the group with Iran and its proxies in the region.
There is widespread evidence that Sinour, along with the head of Hamas’s armed wing, Mohamed Taif, planned the October 7 surprise attack on Israeli territory.
The attack killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and sparked a war in Gaza that has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, local health officials said.
In May, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor requested arrest warrants for Sinouar, Taif and Haniyeh, who were allegedly involved in the attack.
Sinwar has remained in hiding since the attack, but before he became Hamas’ top leader, he was believed to have the final say on any deal to release hostages held by the Islamist group.
There are about 100 hostages in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
It is unclear who will replace Chinawar on the ceasefire efforts that broke down in August after months of negotiations by the United States, Egypt and Qatar.
Hamas has hundreds of thousands of supporters in Gaza, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Palestinian refugee camps.
Many of its key leaders are hiding in Qatar, which has served as a mediator between Israel and the Islamist group.
In the past, Israel has assassinated several Hamas leaders: the group’s founder, the wheelchair-bound Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in March 2004, and his successor, Abdelaziz Randisi, within a month, and two other Hamas leaders from the Islamic group, Salah Shehadeh (2002) or Ahmad Yabari (2012). ).
Israel has confirmed today that it has killed a key Hamas leader and mastermind of the October 7 attacks, Yahya Sinauer.
“Yahya Sinauvar, the mass murderer responsible for the massacres and atrocities of October 7, was removed by the army. [das forças israelitas]”, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Israel Katz, revealed in a statement to reporters.
After the statement by Israel’s diplomatic chief, the military and the National Intelligence Services (ISA) released a statement in which they confirmed yesterday that “after a year of harassment. [quarta-feira]On October 16, 2024, Israeli military forces removed Yahya Sinauwar, the leader of the terrorist organization Hamas, during an operation in the southern Gaza Strip.”
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