The Iran-backed terrorist Hamas organization confirmed on Friday the death of its leader, Yahya Sinwar, in Gaza, celebrating the “fallen martyr” and vowing not to release the dozens of Israeli hostages the group has kept for over a year.
Sinwar, once the head of Hamas in Gaza, took over the entire organization in August after the death of “political” chief Ismail Haniyeh in a bombing in Tehran. He is widely believed to have planned and orchestrated the massacre of 1,200 people and widespread atrocities committed against Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, and stood out even among the genocidal jihadists of Hamas for pressuring the group to embrace more gruesome violence against Israelis and Jews generally. Reports out of Hamas in the past month indicated that Sinwar’s major policy change upon taking control of Hamas was to call for more suicide bombings against Israel.
Khalil Hayya, who took over for Sinwar as the Hamas Gaza chief, confirmed the latter’s death on Friday, celebrating Sinwar as a “martyr” and insisting that Hamas would not free the hostages taken on October 7, approximately 100 people.
“[Sinwar] has lived his whole life as a holy fighter. Since his early days, he was engaged in his struggle as a resistant fighter,” Hayya claimed, according to a translation by the Qatari news outlet Al Jazeera. “He stood defiant behind Israeli bars and after his release in a swapped deal, he continued with his struggle and his dedication to the cause.”
Hayya said that Sinwar’s absence would “strengthen” Hamas and vowed to not free the hostages.
“The occupation [Israeli] prisoners will not return unless the aggression on Gaza stops, there is a complete withdrawal from [Gaza], and our prisoners are released from the prisons,” Hayya said. “Hamas will continue until the establishment of the Palestinian state on all Palestinian soil with Jerusalem as its capital.”
Hamas advocates for the complete destruction of the state of Israel and elimination of its population – an explicitly genocidal goal – and the replacement of Israel with an Islamist state of “Palestine.”
PressTV, an Iranian state propaganda outlet, quoted another alleged “senior Hamas official,” Basem Naim, issuing similarly defiant remarks on Friday.
“Hamas is a liberation movement led by people looking for freedom and dignity, and this cannot be eliminated,” Naim claimed. “We believe that our destiny is one of two good things, either victory or martyrdom.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed they had eliminated Sinwar in Gaza on Thursday. IDF ground forces reportedly identified suspicious Hamas activity in the southern city of Rafah and engaged terrorists on the move. The engagement resulted in the elimination of the terrorists, a contingent that included Sinwar and his bodyguards. Sinwar himself was reportedly killed by a shell from an Israeli tank. The operation was not targeting Sinwar personally, and the Israeli soldiers did not initially know who they were engaging.
Hayya’s declaration that Hamas could not consider liberating the October 7 captives appears to be a response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposing an end to the war between Israel and the terrorist organization on Thursday, contingent on freedom for the hostages.
“While this is not the end of the war in Gaza, it’s the beginning of the end,” Netanyahu said, addressing the residents of Gaza. “To the people of Gaza, I have a simple message: This war can end tomorrow. It can end if Hamas lays down its arms and returns our hostages.”
Netanyahu added, “Israel will guarantee the safety of all those who return our hostages … but to those who would harm our hostages, I have another message: Israel will hunt you down and bring you to justice.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant made a similar offer to Hamas following the confirmation of Sinwar’s death.
“The elimination of Yahya Sinwar sends a clear message to all the families of the fallen and the families of the hostages – we are doing everything in order to get to those who harmed your loved ones and to free the hostages and return them to their families,” Gallant said.
“It is also a clear message to the residents of Gaza. The man who brought disaster and death to the Gaza strip, the man who made you suffer as a result of his murderous actions – the end of this man has come,” he continued. “It is time to go out, release the hostages, [to those involved in fighting] raise your hands, surrender. Go out with the hostages, free them, and surrender.”
Sinwar is the latest to join a growing list of Iran-backed terror group leaders eliminated from the battlefield in the past six months, some by explicit Israeli action and others in attacks widely believed to be conducted by Israel. Haniyeh, who preceded Sinwar in leading Hamas, died on July 31 when an explosion occurred in his lodgings in Tehran, where he was present to attend the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. The head of fellow Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, died in September in an Israeli airstrike against a Hezbollah target in Lebanon. Much of the middle management of Hezbollah was eliminated in a series of explosions throughout Lebanon that month, prior to Nasrallah’s demise, caused by pagers, walkie-talkies, and other household technology. At press time, Israel has not taken responsibility for those explosions.
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