On Tuesday the Hamas announced Yahya Sinwar as the political chief at-large to succeed the late Ismail Haniyeh who was assassinated in a suspected Israeli attack in Tehran last week.
Born in 1962 in Khan Younis, Sinwar is often portrayed as one of the most uncompromising top Hamas officials. He was arrested by Israel repeatedly in the early 1980s for his involvement in anti-occupation activism at the Islamic University in Gaza.
After his graduation, he helped establish a network of fighters to take up armed resistance against Israel. The group would later become the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.
Read also:Yahya Sinwar named Hamas new leader to succeed Ismail Haniyeh
Sinwar joined Hamas as one of its leaders almost as soon as the group was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 1987. The following year, he was arrested by the Israeli 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 spies.
He spent 23 years in Israeli jail where he learned Hebrew and became well versed in Israeli affairs and domestic politics. He was freed in 2011 as part of the prisoner exchange deal that saw the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shait who had been captured by Hamas.
After his release, Sinwar quickly rose through Hamas’s ranks again. In 2012, he was elected to the group’s political bureau and was tasked with coordinating with the Qassam Brigades.
Read also:Ismail Haniyeh Hamas political chief killed by airstrike in Iran
In 2017, Sinwar became Hamas’s chief in Gaza, succeeding Haniyeh, who was elected as the chair of the group’s political bureau.
Unlike Haniyeh, who had travelled regionally and delivered speeches throughout the continuing war on Gaza, until his assassination, Sinwar has been tight-lipped since October 7.
But in a 2021 interview with Vice News, Sinwar said that while Palestinians do not seek war due to its high cost, they will not “wave the white flag”.
“For long periods, we tried peaceful and popular resistance. We expected that the world, free people and international organisations would stand by our people and stop occupation from committing crimes and massacring our people. Unfortunately, the world stood by and watched,” he said.
He played a leading political and military role during Israel’s seven-week offensive against Gaza in 2014. The next year, the United States labelled Sinwar as a “specially designated global terrorist”.
Asked about Hamas’s tactics, including firing indiscriminate rockets that could harm civilians, Sinwar said Palestinians are fighting with the means at their disposal. He accused Israel of deliberately killing Palestinian civilians en masse, despite having advanced, precise weaponry.
“Does the world expect us to be well-behaved victims while we are being killed, for us to be slaughtered without making a noise?” Sinwar had said.
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