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CNN
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Israel’s prime minister said on Wednesday that Israeli forces surrounded the house of Yahya Sinwar, who may be closing in on the top Hamas office in Gaza – and who is the most wanted person by the authorities. Israel.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Sinwar was not in the building and believed hide underground in Gaza, but a senior adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that “it’s only a matter of time before we find him.”
Israel Sinwar has been publicly accused of being the “mastermind” behind the deadly Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7 – despite experts saying he seems to be one of the few – making him one of the main targets of his war in Gaza.
A veteran of the Palestinian Islamist group, Sinwar was responsible for building the Hamas army before forging important new ties with regional Arab powers as an organizational and political leader.
He was chosen Hamas‘ head of decision-making, the Politburo, in 2017 the political leader of Hamas in the Gaza branch. However, since that time he has become the head of the Politburo, according to research by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).
He has been designated a global terrorist by the US Department of State since 2015, and has recently been sanctioned by Britain and France.
Harel Chorev, senior researcher at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, said that although Sinwar is a key figure within Hamas, he should not be seen as its leader.
“He is considered the most senior because he has a high social status, but Hamas does not work this way,” he said. “Hamas is a united organization with many centers and he is one of them.”
Chorev said that while Sinwar was a prominent figure, he was one of a “triumvirate” of Hamas officials responsible for the October 7 attack, along with Mohammed al-Masri, known as Mohammed Deif. , the leader of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas army, and Deif’s deputy, Marwan Issa.
Sinwar, with his silver head of hair and dark eyes under prominent eyebrows, is the most famous and the most famous of the three, but it was Deif who announced the attack on October 7.
But while Sinwar has spent the past few years giving speeches and taking pictures, Deif is a very secretive, shadowy figure who has never been seen in public. many years.
Ashraf Amra/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Yahya Sinwar participated in a parade in Gaza City on May 30, 2021.
Sinwar was born in 1962 in a refugee camp in Khan Younis, south of Gaza. His family left Al-Majdala modern day Palestinian village of Ashkelon, during the Arab-Israeli war.
He joined Hamas in the late 1980s and became one of the founders of its internal intelligence apparatus, known as the Majd.
He was accused in 1988 of playing a role in the killing of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel, and spent more than two decades in an Israeli prison.
Sinwar later stated that he spent those years studying his enemy, including learning to speak Hebrew.
He was released in 2011 as part of a deal that saw more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners exchanged for Gilad Shalit, an IDF soldier who was captured and taken to Gaza, where he was held for more than and five years.
At the time, Sinwar called the transaction “one of the great gems in the history of our profession.”
According to Chorev, his release was helped by the fact that his brother was one of Shalit’s robbers and he was persuaded to be involved in the transaction.
Back in Gaza, Sinwar rose through the ranks and quickly became a key figure within Hamas. Chorev said he was known for his brutality and violence against anyone he suspected of treason or collaboration.
“It is known that while in prison, he tortured people, mostly Hamas members, using (a) hot plates to burn them… his role in the Majd is telling the truth you have a lot of his character, his brutality. But at the same time, the Israelis who met him said that it can also be very useful, talking openly about the decisions, “said Chorev.
As the political leader of Hamas, Sinwar focused on the group’s foreign relations. According to the ECFR, he was responsible for restoring Hamas’s relationship with Egyptian leaders who are wary of the group’s support for Islamic politics, and for drawing military funding from Iran. .
Sinwar was considered a key decision maker and apparently the main point of contact within Gaza during the intense negotiations regarding the return of more than 240 people taken into the the location by Hamas in the attacks of October 7. The discussions included senior officials from Israel, Hamas, America, Qatar and Egypt.
“At the end of the day there are two people” on the negotiation, said Gershon Baskin, a prominent Israeli peace activist involved in the release of Shalit, the Israeli soldier in 2011. One is Yahya Sinwar on the side of Hamas, and the other is Benjamin Netanyahu on the side of Israel.”
More than 100 Israelis and foreigners were freed by Hamas and 240 Palestinian prisoners and detainees were released by Israel as part of a peace deal won by those talks, before the temporary ceasefire collapsed on 1 December, with Israel and Hamas blaming each other for the failure.
Sinwar has been cited for several things in the past two months: Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht called Sinwar the “face of evil” and declared him a “dead man walking.” Israeli media compared him to Osama bin Laden, while a biography published by the IDF called him “the Butcher from Khan Younis.”
But Chorev said that despite his position in the spotlight, Sinwar is just one of many leaders Israel needs to remove before it can say it has “destroyed Hamas.”
“Simply put, if Israel kills Sinwar, it does not mean that Hamas will be defeated. However, Hamas can still be destroyed even if Sinwar is still alive… because it is not (a terrorist organization). In order for Israel to destroy Hamas, it needs to destroy many centers, not just one,” he said.