Yahya Sinwar: Hamas Man Who Will Never Raise the White Flag
Hamas Palestinian resistance group surprised the enemy on Tuesday, naming Yahya Sinwar as its new leader, succeeding Ismail Haniyeh who was martyred last week in an assassination blamed on the Zionist entity in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
The selection of Sinwar, 61, carried powerful messages to the Israeli enemy, on top of which is that the architect of the October 7th heroic Operation Al-Aqsa Flood is alive, despite being hunted and keeping tightlipped throughout ten months of the brutal war on Gaza.
Sinwar’s appointment sends “a message from Hamas that he is alive, despite being hunted by Israel, and that Hamas’s leadership in Gaza remains strong and intends to stay in power,” according to Roi Kais, the Arab affairs correspondent for Israeli KAN News.
The second message delivered through Hamas’ step, is the unity of movement and Sinwar’s capability to lead the resistance group despite the “difficulties in communicating with the rest of Hamas’ leadership,” as reported by mainstream media.
The third message is that the fate of the ceasefire talks is in the hand of Hamas’ man who spent 23 years in Israeli jails and has been described by the Israeli occupation as ruthless and powerful, based on an Israeli assessment of his years in detention.
Who is Sinwar?
Born in 1962 in Gaza’s Khan Younis, Sinwar finished his studies at the Islamic university of Gaza with a BA in Arabic studies.
He was repeatedly arrested by the Israeli occupation in the early 1980s for his involvement in anti-occupation activism at the Islamic University in Gaza.
Sinwar joined Hamas as one of its leaders almost as soon as the group was founded by late Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 1987.
The following year (in 1988), he was arrested by the Israeli occupation forces and handed four life sentences – the equivalent of 426 years in jail – for alleged involvement in the capture and killing of two Israeli soldiers and four suspected Palestinian collaborators.
“Specialist in Jewish People’s History”
During his 23-year detention, Siwnar learned Hebrew and became well versed in Israeli affairs and domestic politics. He became fluent enough to give interviews to Israeli journalists in their own language.
He translated into Arabic tens of thousands of pages of contraband Hebrew-language autobiographies written by the former heads of Israeli security agency, Shin Bet.
The New York Times quoted an Israeli dentist Yuval Bitton, who treated Sinwar when he was in prison.
“Sinwar had surreptitiously shared the translated pages so that inmates could study the agency’s counterterrorism tactics. He liked to call himself a specialist in the Jewish people’s history,” Bitton said.
For his part, Micha Kobi, who interrogated Sinwar for the Shin Bet intelligence service, described him as saying: “He learned (about) us from the bottom all the way to the top.”
He was freed in 2011, as part of the prisoner exchange deal that saw the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been captured by Hamas, for more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
Following his freedom, Sinwar quickly rose through Hamas’s ranks. In 2017, he became Hamas’s chief in Gaza, succeeding Haniyeh, who was elected as the group’s overall leader.
In a 2018 interview, Sinwar stressed that the resistance group will never raise the white flag, affirming the Palestinian people’s right to defend their land.
Role in Op. Al-Aqsa Flood
In 2021, he was re-elected as the movement’s chief in Gaza. A few months later, the Palestinian resistance and the Zionist entity fought an 11-day war, dubbed “Al-Quds Sword,” after which Sinwar — perched on a chair in the rubble of what had been his home — announced victory.
During the year before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, the Israeli official assessment was that the Sinwar-led Hamas “was both deterred from fighting another war and interested in a broader agreement with Israel,” The Financial Times reported on November 2023.
“According to Israeli intelligence, Hamas’s assault required at least a year of planning. Sinwar’s outwardly pragmatic facade, Israeli officials and analysts now maintain, was pure deception meant to buy time,” the FT added in an article entitled: “‘Dead man walking’: How Yahya Sinwar Deceived Israel for Decades.”
Back to Hamas’ announcement on Tuesday (August 6), it seems that the ‘dead man walking’, as referred to by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, has now the final say in Gaza following the assassination of Haniyeh. Tapping Sinwar to be Hamas’ overall leader has raised eyebrows in Tel Aviv, in a move that may echo what happened in 1992, when the Israeli enemy assassinated former Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Abbas Al-Moussawi, who was succeeded by current leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah.
Source: Al-Manar English Website
