Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, believed to be the architect of the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attacks, was killed during the Israeli military’s operations in Gaza, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Thursday.
“Terrorist mastermind Yahya Sinwar, responsible for the massacre and atrocities of October 7th, was eliminated today by IDF soldiers,” Katz said in a statement.
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In a post on X, the Israel Defense Forces said: "Eliminated: Yahya Sinwar."
Hamas is yet to confirm Sinwar's death.
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The Israel Defense Forces had said earlier in the day that it was “checking the possibility” that Sinwar had been among three militants killed in Gaza during its operations in the enclave. It said a battery of DNA tests was being completed to confirm the development.
Sinwar was declared Hamas’ new political head in August following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh. His death will come as a significant blow to the militant group and its supporters — and as a major coup for Israel and its war in the Gaza Strip.
A senior Israeli official told NBC News prior to confirmation of Sinwar’s death that troops had identified him as being among three militants killed during a “heavy gun battle” in Gaza. But, they said the operation had not been aimed at killing Sinwar.
U.S. & World
U.S. officials were in close contact with Israeli officials about Sinwar’s possible death, a U.S. official told NBC News prior to the IDF’s announcement said at least three militants had been killed in a building in Gaza. They did not expand on exactly how they were killed.
The IDF and the Shin Bet had noted in a statement that there were “no signs of the presence of hostages in the area” of the building where the militants were killed.
The IDF had vowed following the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 others taken hostage, to capture Sinwar “dead or alive.”
National security spokesman John Kirby said earlier Thursday the U.S. was aware of reports that Sinwar might be dead, but said government officials had not independently confirmed those reports.
Sinwar had been in charge of day-to-day governance in Gaza prior to Oct. 7, 2023, and was named Hamas’ new political head after Haniyeh was killed in an airstrike on his residence in Tehran.
Haniyeh had been attending the inauguration ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Israel, which typically remains silent on targeted assassinations, is believed to have carried out the attack.
Sinwar, who was born in a Gaza refugee camp in the early 1960s, joined Hamas after its founding in 1987 and helped establish its internal security force a year later, according to a profile of him by the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
He was sentenced to life in prison in 1988 for plotting to kill two Israeli soldiers, as well as the killing of four Palestinians he suspected of collaborating with Israel. He was released years later in 2011 as one of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners freed in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who had been held by Hamas for more than five years.
Sinwar quickly rose up through the ranks of the militant group and was elevated to its helm in a secret ballot in 2017.
The already elusive Hamas leader went into hiding after the Oct. 7 attacks and was believed to be concealed within the elaborate tunnel system used by Hamas militants in Gaza, according to Israeli officials.
In a statement Thursday, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum Headquarters, which represents the families of hostages held by Hamas, said it welcomed the possibility of Sinwar’s killing and urged the leveraging of “this major achievement to secure hostages’ return.”
Of the roughly 250 people taken hostage into Gaza during the Oct. 7 attacks, 154 have been freed, with 101 hostages still held in Gaza, including 33 believed dead, according to Israeli officials.
“I am hopeful that his personal reign of terror has ended,” Thomas Hand, the father of Emily Hand, who was released by Hamas as part of a temporary cease-fire deal in November, told NBC News prior to Israel's announcement confirming Sinwar's death.
“I hope that this heavy blow to their command structure will help bring an end to this terrible war,” he said. “Perhaps they will feel weakened enough to come to the table and finally make a serious deal to end the war and give us back our poor hostages after more than a YEAR in brutal captivity.”
Katz said Sinwar's death would create “an opportunity for the immediate release of the hostages and a potential change that could lead to a new reality in Gaza—without Hamas and without Iranian control."
He did not expand on how Sinwar’s killing would advance the release of hostages who remain held in the enclave.
More than 42,400 people have been killed in Gaza, health officials there say, in the year since Israel launched its offensive after the attacks, the latest major escalation in a decadeslong conflict.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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