The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, claimed on Wednesday that Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar demanded his terrorists increase the frequency of suicide bombings when he took over the group in August.
Sinwar – previously the head of the Hamas “military” wing, the al-Qassam Brigades – became the head of the entire organization after the death of “political” chief Ismail Haniyeh on July 30. Haniyeh was in Tehran, Iran, for the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian when his lodgings exploded, killing him. Both Iran and Hamas have blamed Israel for the blast, although the country has not taken responsibility for the explosion.
The Wall Street Journal claimed Sinwar made the demand for more suicide bombings in private to another senior Hamas terrorists. Before August was over, however, another top Hamas terrorist, Khaled Mashal, appeared in Turkey demanding that Hamas and its Islamist sympathizers begin attempting “martyrdom operations,” or suicide bombings, against Israel to support the terrorists.
The Wall Street Journal cited alleged “Arab intelligence officials” in its report, claiming Sinwar declared shortly after taking over Hamas, “now is the time to revive suicide bombings.” It noted that Israel thwarted a suicide attack days later. The Journal report presented a bizarrely sympathetic portrayal of Haniyeh, a billionaire who lived in luxury in Qatar off of promoting antisemitic terrorism, as a “moderate” who tempered the “megalomaniac” tendencies of Sinwar.
“Sinwar is now imposing his more violent vision on Hamas as the Israeli military squeezes the group in Gaza,” the Journal claimed.
In reality, Hamas is a genocidal organization whose members are dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the elimination of its people entirely. Similarly, the Journal alleged that the decline in the number of Hamas-related suicide attacks in the past two decades was due to the alleged “moderation” of some senior terrorists. The Times of Israel noted this week that, contrary to that interpretation, the decline in suicide attacks occurred after “Israel built a security barrier around the West Bank and boosted its intelligence-gathering methods to thwart the bombers.”
This file photo taken on May 1, 2017 shows Yahya Sinwar front in Gaza city. (Wissam Nassar/Xinhua via Getty)
The Journal also reported that some leaders in Hamas had “misgivings” about the order, citing its anonymous “Arab officials,” but none would publicly say so. This allegation also contradicts the fact that Mashal, the head of the Hamas “diaspora office,” gave a speech in August demanding that Hamas supporters organize their own suicide attacks.
“Today, in the West Bank, within the 1948 borders, and in the diaspora, the escalation of this conflict is required,” he said, addressing an anti-Israel conference in Turkey. “Today, in the West Bank, we have seen some successful early signs of martyrdom operations. We want to go back to the martyrdom operations. This necessitates an all-out conflict.”
“We should unleash all forms of resistance, and first and foremost, the martyrdom operations,” Mashal insisted. “We should engage in these operations. We should have an all-out confrontation. We should reignite this spirit in the West Bank and the 1948 borders. Otherwise, Israel will fight us piece by piece.”
Turkey is one of Hamas’s closest state allies. Islamist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has openly declared on several occasions that he believes “Hamas is not a terrorist organization,” including shortly after the unprecedented Hamas siege of Israel on October 7, 2023, in which the jihadists killed an estimated 1,200 people and took over 250 hostage. Of those hostages, 97 remain missing, believed to be in Gaza.
Similar to Mashal, the al-Qassam Brigades published a message in September asking Palestinians and other Muslims to engage in a “flood of martyrdom operations” against Israel.
“And we … tell the oppressive enemy that the river of blood flowing on the land of the Gaza,” the message declared in part, “will be met with a flood of martyrdom operations that will turn its situation upside down in its own house.”
Sinwar’s status as press time remains a mystery. He reportedly remains in Gaza, according to multiple reports. The Wall Street Journal‘s sources claimed that Sinwar had contacted them within the past week. On Monday, the Times of Israel reported that Israel’s Channel 12 had contacted individuals who believed that Sinwar had, after weeks of not doing so, contacted Hamas’s allies in Qatar to discuss potential ceasefire negotiations. The Israeli outlet Ynet reported on Tuesday, however, that its “senior official” sources claimed that Sinwar was “isolated” and did not contact Qatar.
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