Israel-Gaza War: How Hamas boss Yahya Sinwar distracted Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of 7 October attack?

Five years ago, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, scrawled a note on a document that he knew Egyptian intermediaries would hand to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Livemint, Written By Sayantani Biswas
Updated20 Nov 2023, 07:29 PM IST
Israel-Hamas war: Yahia Sinwar (C), Gaza Strip chief of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, waves to supporters as he arrives to attend a rally marking Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day, a commemoration in support of the Palestinian people celebrated annually on the last Friday of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, in Gaza City, on April 14, 2023. Two accused masterminds of Hamas's October 7, 2023 attacks, military strategist Mohammed Deif and political leader Yahya Sinwar, sit at the top of Israel's hit list as it threatens that every member of the militant group faces death when it invades Gaza
Israel-Hamas war: Yahia Sinwar (C), Gaza Strip chief of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, waves to supporters as he arrives to attend a rally marking Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day, a commemoration in support of the Palestinian people celebrated annually on the last Friday of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, in Gaza City, on April 14, 2023. Two accused masterminds of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks, military strategist Mohammed Deif and political leader Yahya Sinwar, sit at the top of Israel’s hit list as it threatens that every member of the militant group faces death when it invades Gaza(AFP)

Israel-Gaza war: A man, a chief of an organization deemed ‘terrorist’ in several countries, a chief of an organisation that began as resistance, has now emerged as the top of assassination list. Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar had five years ago written ‘take a calculated risk’ in Hebrew on a document that he was well aware would eventually be passed on to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the Egyptian intermediaries. 

According to National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, Sinwar's effort was as ‘calculated’ as the little Hebrew note he scribbled. 

This incident was five years old. 

Notably, then Sinwar had also told an Italian journalist, “I don’t want war anymore. I want a ceasefire.” His ambition for the impoverished Palestinian coastal strip? “We can be like Singapore, like Dubai.”, as per Bloomberg report. 

In the wake of Hamas’s long-planned and brutal October 7 assault on Israel, the Israeli security establishment is looking back on his words in a new light: as part of an effort to create the illusion that Hamas, considered a terrorist group by the US and European Union, was limiting its embrace of violence to focus on governance. 

Israeli officials now acknowledge that a sense of complacency had set in around Hamas. In recent years, the military had greatly reduced its surveillance of the Gaza border fence, relying on electronic sensors and transferring troops out of the area to guard settlements in the West Bank. 

Analysts believed that Israel had started focusing on Iran and Syria because working on Palestinian issues was not considered of existential importance. 

The overarching sentiment was that Hamas had been deterred, and that the real challenges lay further afield. 

“Sinwar read the Israeli consciousness very well,” said Michael Milshtein, former head of Palestinian research for the military’s intelligence department. “He wanted Israel to believe that Hamas was concentrating on stability in Gaza, promoting civil affairs. He planted this wrong idea in the minds of Israelis.”

Today, as the Israeli military reduces much of Gaza to rubble in its mission to destroy Hamas, killing more than 11,000 people in the process, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, Sinwar is emerging as the assault’s mastermind. He’s the top target for assassination, assumed to be hiding deep in a Gaza tunnel, “like a little Hitler in a bunker,” as Netanyahu put it recently. 

Who is Yahya Sinwar?

Born in a poor neighborhood of the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, Yahya Sinwar, 61, helped found Hamas’s military wing in the late 1980s as the first Palestinian uprising was underway. 

Behind bars, Yahya Sinwar achieved deep fluency in Hebrew and Israeli society, regularly reading newspapers along with the biographies of key Israeli figures. He also became the uncontested leader of Hamas prisoners. According to Israeli officials and a former Hamas activist, while in prison he continued to have collaborators killed — including one he personally beheaded.

According to Bloomberg, officials describe him as a cold-blooded, magnetic leader; a compact, sinewy man whose close-cropped hair and beard have by now mostly turned white.

In the early 2000s, while in prison, Yahya Sinwar began experiencing headaches and blurred vision. He was taken to the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba where a surgeon removed a brain tumor, saving his life, reports Bloomberg.

He rejoined Hamas at a senior level and by 2017 had been elected the group’s leader for all of Gaza, replacing Ismail Haniyeh, who was sent to Qatar. 

Since the attacks, Yahya Sinwar has not issued any statements or spoken to the press. 

Meanwhile, a poster hangs on the wall of the defense ministry in Tel Aviv. It features dozens of Hamas commanders with lines drawn across the faces of those who’ve been killed. The plan is to fill the poster with marks. 

Yahya Sinwar is at the top.

(With inputs from Bloomberg)

Catch all the Business News , Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.

MoreLess
First Published:20 Nov 2023, 07:29 PM IST
Business NewsNewsWorldIsrael-Gaza War: How Hamas boss Yahya Sinwar distracted Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of 7 October attack?

Get Instant Loan up to ₹10 Lakh!

  • Employment Type

    Most Active Stocks

    Tata Steel share price

    152.30
    03:58 PM | 5 NOV 2024
    5.35 (3.64%)

    Bharat Electronics share price

    286.15
    03:59 PM | 5 NOV 2024
    2.1 (0.74%)

    Bank Of Baroda share price

    257.80
    03:59 PM | 5 NOV 2024
    5.05 (2%)

    State Bank Of India share price

    849.20
    03:59 PM | 5 NOV 2024
    19.35 (2.33%)
    More Active Stocks

    Market Snapshot

    • Top Gainers
    • Top Losers
    • 52 Week High

    Rainbow Childrens Medicare share price

    1,548.10
    03:58 PM | 5 NOV 2024
    -82.6 (-5.07%)

    Torrent Power share price

    1,708.00
    03:29 PM | 5 NOV 2024
    -88.75 (-4.94%)

    PB Fintech share price

    1,640.20
    03:57 PM | 5 NOV 2024
    -72.55 (-4.24%)

    Tube Investments Of India share price

    4,180.70
    03:58 PM | 5 NOV 2024
    -179.4 (-4.11%)
    More from Top Losers

    HFCL share price

    127.85
    03:47 PM | 5 NOV 2024
    8.5 (7.12%)

    Jindal Saw share price

    326.10
    03:29 PM | 5 NOV 2024
    16.15 (5.21%)

    Adani Energy Solutions share price

    1,014.65
    03:54 PM | 5 NOV 2024
    49.25 (5.1%)

    Oil India share price

    495.45
    03:54 PM | 5 NOV 2024
    23 (4.87%)
    More from Top Gainers

    Recommended For You

      More Recommendations

      Gold Prices

      • 24K
      • 22K
      Bangalore
      80,255.000.00
      Chennai
      80,261.000.00
      Delhi
      80,413.000.00
      Kolkata
      80,265.000.00

      Fuel Price

      • Petrol
      • Diesel
      Bangalore
      102.92/L0.00
      Chennai
      100.80/L0.00
      Kolkata
      104.95/L0.00
      New Delhi
      94.77/L0.00

      Popular in News

        HomeMarketsPremiumInstant LoanMint Shorts