Yahya Sinwar, the new leader of Hamas, nicknamed "the walking dead"
After an obscure career spent in Israeli prisons and in the internal security apparatus of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar became the leader of the Palestinian movement in the middle of an open war. Sinwar, until now the head of the movement in Gaza, replaces Ismail Haniyeh, whose assassination in Tehran last week raised tensions in the Middle East and raised fears of a coordinated attack on Israel and its regional proxies.
By choosing him as the head of the group, Hamas "sends a strong message to the occupation that Hamas continues its path of resistance," a senior Hamas official told AFP. Sinwar is accused of orchestrating the October 7 attacks, the worst in Israeli history, which left 1,198 dead and 251 hostages taken according to an AFP tally and Israeli official figures.
The day after the attack, the Israeli military declared him a "dead man walking", although Sinwar has not been seen since. The October 7 attack, which was probably planned for a year or two, "surprised everyone" and "changed the balance of forces on the ground," said Leila Seurat of the Center for Arab Research and Studies. Politicians (CAREP) in Paris.
The 61-year-old ascetic is a security agent "par excellence," according to Abou Abdallah, a member of Hamas who spent years alongside him in Israeli prisons.
"He makes decisions in the utmost calm, but it is difficult when it comes to protecting the interests of Hamas," Abu Abdallah told AFP in 2017, after his former cellmate was elected head of Hamas in Gaza.
Punishment of employees
Later on October 7, Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht called Sinwar "the face of evil" and declared him a "dead man walking."
Born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in southern Gaza, Sinwar joined Hamas when Sheikh Ahmad Yassin founded the group around the time the first Palestinian Intifada began in 1987. The following year, Sinwar created the group's internal security apparatus and later headed an intelligence unit tasked with tracking down and ruthlessly punishing — sometimes killing — Palestinians accused of providing information to Israel.
According to a transcript of an interrogation with security officials published in Israeli media, Sinwar confessed to strangling a suspected accomplice with a keffiyeh at a cemetery in Khan Yunis.
A graduate of the Islamic University of Gaza, he learned Hebrew to perfection during his 23 years in Israeli prisons and is said to have a deep understanding of Israeli culture and society.
He was serving four life sentences for the killing of two Israeli soldiers when he became the oldest of 1,027 Palestinians released in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011.
Sinwar then became a senior commander of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, before taking over as the movement's director general in Gaza. While his predecessor, Haniyeh, had encouraged Hamas' efforts to present a moderate face to the world, Sinwar preferred to bring the Palestinian cause to the forefront through more violent means.
The Ministry of Health in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip says the devastating air and ground offensive launched by Israel in response to the October 7 attacks has killed at least 39,653 people in the Palestinian territory.
"Radical and pragmatic"
Sinwar dreams of a single Palestinian state uniting the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank - controlled by Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party - and annexing East Jerusalem.
According to the US Council on Foreign Relations, he has vowed to punish anyone who commits to reconciliation with Fatah, the rival political movement with which Hamas engaged in factional fighting after the 2006 elections.
Such a reconciliation remains elusive, but the release of prisoners resulting from November's brief ceasefire agreement with Israel has seen Hamas's popularity soar in the West Bank. Sinwar followed a path that led him to be "radical in military planning and pragmatic in politics," according to Seurat.
"I don't support force for force's sake, but to make negotiations" with Israel, he said.
The Hamas leader was added to the US list of most wanted "international terrorists" in 2015.
Security sources outside Gaza say Sinwar took refuge in the network of tunnels built under the territory to withstand Israeli bombardment.
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In November, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed to "find and eliminate" Sinwar, urging Gazans to return Sinwar, adding that "if you have him before us, it will shorten the war."
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