Hamas chief Sinwar killed, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu says 'evil delivered a blow'
"Mass murderer Yahya Sinwar, who was responsible for the massacre and atrocities of October 7, was killed today by IDF soldiers," Israeli Foreign Minister Israel said in a statement.
Earlier, he survived Israeli jails for 22 years.
From his hiding, Sinwar used to call for suicide attacks on Israeli targets.
He also became infamous as the 'Butcher of Khan Younis'.
In October 2023, several Israelis were held hostage in a dark tunnel in Gaza. Suddenly, a man emerged out of nowhere. This was the Hamas Chief Yahya Sinwar.
When asked if he was ashamed of abducting an Israeli peace campaigner, he responded with silence. This video found by the Israeli military was one of the last traces of the terror-group Hamas's new chief -- Yahya Sinwar.
This is the man who ordered the October 7 attacks on Israel, killing 1,200 people. While it has been difficult to find him, he was the prime target of Israel.
Before the reports of the operation in Gaza, Sinwar had been out of the public eye for weeks now, fuelling speculations that he was dead. But several reports, including one from the Washington Post, claimed Sinwar was alive and ordering "suicide bombings".
The White House Mideast czar Brett McGurk even claimed that he was in an underground Gaza tunnel, also called "Gaza metro", according to the Times of Israel. A report by the Guardian also earlier stated that Sinwar was in a tunnel inside Gaza, a completely underground city, with human shields to protect him.
“What we would hope, is that whoever the next leader of Hamas is, he will look at what has happened over the past year and look at the suffering that Hamas’s actions have brought upon the Palestinian people who they aim to represent, whose cause they aim to advance, and decide that they ought to pursue a different path forward,” Miller said at a press briefing.
US Vice President and Democratic candidate for the Presidential poll, Kamala Harris hailed Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, noting that “he had American blood on his hands.”
“Any terrorist who kills Americans, threatens the American people or threatens our troops or our interests, know this — we will always bring you to justice,” Harris says in a statement to reporters.
“Israel has a right to defend itself, and the threat Hamas poses to Israel must be eliminated. Today, there is clear progress toward that goal. Hamas is decimated and its leadership is eliminated,” she says.
Born in 1962, Sinwar had been recruited by Hamas's founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who made him a chief of an internal security unit known as Al Majd. His role was to hunt and punish those who were suspected of violating Islamic morality laws or cooperating with the Israeli forces, a position that eventually led to his arrest.
He was imprisoned in 1988 for killing four Palestinians for collaborating with Israel. He spent over two decades in an Israeli jail, where he learnt Hebrew.
He was released in a prisoner swap in 2011. He had been in favour of armed confrontation with the Jewish state over diplomatic initiatives.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant held a phone call with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to discuss Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the Pentagon says.
Austin “expressed strong support for the immediate release of all remaining hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza,” the US readout says.
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