Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed in a drone strike during an Israeli attack on Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah.
The Israeli army has released a video purporting to show the last moments of Yahya Sinwar. The video shows a man wearing a keffiyeh and combat fatigues in the ruins of the Tel al Sultan refugee camp.
The Hamas leader was the successor to Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated by Israeli agents in Tehran in July. The Israeli military claims that he was the main architect of the 7 October Hamas operation in Israel, which resulted in the deaths of up to 1,200 people, and provided the stated justification for Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) had issued an arrest warrant for Sinwar for his role in planning the 7 October attacks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant are also subject to ICC warrants, for war crimes including deliberate starvation and extermination in Gaza.
Israel’s genocide has now claimed the lives of at least 42,039 people in Gaza, while the death toll in Lebanon has reached 2,400.
Israel also assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon last month.
US President Joe Biden congratulated Israel on killing Sinwar, and said that there was now an opportunity for a “political settlement”. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly told the press that “the war in Gaza will continue”.
Khalil al-Hayya, the current head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, confirmed on Friday that Sinwar had been killed.
Sinwar was born in 1962 in Khan Younis, in the then Egyptian occupied Gaza Strip. His parents were refugees, forced to flee from their homes in Majdal Asqalan – which is now the modern-day Israeli city of Ashkelon. He served 22 years in Israeli jails, before being released alongside over a thousand other prisoners in exchange for the abducted soldier Gilad Shalit. During his time in prison, Sinwar served as a secretary to Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, learned Hebrew, and studied Israeli and Palestinian politics and society.
The Iranian state’s Mission to the United Nations described Sinwar as a martyr, and said that the “spirit of resistance” will be strengthened by what happened in his last moments. The Iranian regime is supporting Hamas and Hezbollah, and purporting to support the Palestinian cause, while stifling democracy and peoples’ autonomy within its own borders. At least 94 political prisoners were executed in Iran during the month of August alone.
Some international commentators are celebrating Sinwar’s role in resisting Israel. But there are critical voices about Hamas amongst Palestinians. Some see them, as well as the Fatah-led Palestinian authority in the West Bank, as oppressive to their own people. Palestinian organiser Lina Nabulsy spoke to Shoal Collective about Hamas’ suppression of Palestinian dissent against their authority. She said: “In Gaza they are suffocated. Hamas know who you are, they know your family.”
Right now, Palestinians are resisting against Israel’s ongoing genocide, which, as several NGOs and human rights organisations have recently warned, threatens to “wipe-out” the population of northern Gaza. Palestinians are stuck between the authoritarianism and corruption of the Palestinian authority, the despotism and conservativism of Hamas and the West’s complicity with Israel’s crimes. The true spirit of anti-colonial resistance lies not with Sinwar, Haniyeh, or Nasrallah, but with the steadfast struggle of the Palestinian people themselves.
