This is the first time that Hamas’ military leader has also taken charge of its general policy. Since 1987, the year the Islamist movement was founded, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ army, had been independent of its political leader. He had been living abroad since 1996. Khaled Meshaal resided in Damascus, and his successor Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar.
Following the latter’s assassination in Tehran on July 31, Yahya Sinwar, nicknamed by some Israeli officers “the butcher of Khan Younis”, replaced him. Does this mean that the movement has decided to go all the way in this war, putting aside the release of the hostages? Or is Sinwar, who knows Israel well and speaks Hebrew fluently, capable of directly leading negotiations with the Israeli government? To have some answers about Hamas’ strategy, we must understand how Sinwar thinks, and what his objectives are in this war.
On October 11, 2011, Israel released 1,027 Palestinians from prison in exchange for the return of Gilad Shalit, a soldier kidnapped by Hamas in 2006. In Syria, we were preoccupied by the daily attacks by Bashar al-Assad’s regime against protesters. But that day, the regime’s media, as well as the opposition’s, spoke only of this great news. Among the faces visible in the videos broadcast on television channels, we discovered that of a thin man, with a small white beard and cruel eyes, waving to the people who greeted him from the train window. But no media focused on him. It was Yahya Sinouar, today considered the mastermind of the October 7 attack.
After completing his Arabic studies at the University of Gaza at the age of 20, Sinouar quickly became the right-hand man of Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas. He proposed to the leader that they create an intelligence group to identify the agents of the Israeli Shin Bet, who were omnipresent in Gaza. Sinouar had several Gazans executed by shooting or hanging. In 1989, he himself was arrested by the Shin Bet. Accused of killing four Palestinians, he was sentenced to 430 years in prison.
In prison, Sinouar emerged as the leader of the arrested Hamas and other Islamist militia members. Again, he hunted down “birds,” a term used to describe agents among the Palestinian detainees. Some were killed with razors or penknives. Sinouar was thus placed in solitary confinement, where he spent four years. “Today I am imprisoned in your house, but one day you and your family will be my hostages,” Sinouar told the Israeli officer who was interrogating him at the time. In his testimony on Israel’s Channel 12 last December, he confirmed: “I laughed at that sentence; I never imagined it would become a reality.”
Fake pacifist
A calmer man, Sinouar studied Hebrew and translated books into Arabic, including one by Carmi Gillon, the former head of the Shin Bet. He read biographies of Israeli presidents. Back in the communal cell, he encouraged other inmates to study Hebrew. He watched Israeli television and told investigators he wanted to spend the rest of his life in peace. In 2004, he began experiencing severe pain in his head, making it difficult for him to sleep, walk, or even speak properly. Guards took him to the emergency room, where doctors discovered a tumor in his brain.
After being operated on in one of the best hospitals in Israel, the Shamir Medical Center, he became close to his doctor: Yuval Bitton. The latter declared, after the October 7 attack on CNN, that Sinwar confirmed to him that a twenty-year truce had to be signed between Israel and Hamas, and that the Islamist movement should no longer resist against the most powerful state in the Middle East. The same year, Sinwar repeated this idea on an Israeli channel that interviewed him, declaring in Hebrew: “Israel has 200 nuclear weapons, it is useless to continue the war against it. This area must recognize calm and growth. All we ask is that Israel help us rebuild Gaza and develop it economically.” When Gilad Shalit was kidnapped, Sinwar became, from his prison, the head of negotiations between Israel and Hamas. The Hebrew state accepted that this man who had spent his entire youth in prison be among those released. This is the biggest mistake Israel has made in its entire history.
Following his release, Sinouar coordinated between Hamas’ political bureau and the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades until 2017, when he was appointed Hamas’s head in Gaza. He announced that his priority was the development of the area and the non-violent struggle for the Al-Aqsa Mosque. In 2018, he told Al-Jazeera that Hamas would follow the peaceful resistance against Israel. Israel allows subsidies from Qatar to enter Gaza through the Israeli-controlled Erez crossing, including construction materials and fuel. Israel allows more than 18,000 Gazans to work in its cities. Sinouar encourages this approach.
Later, it was discovered that among these workers were Hamas agents and that the materials sent to Gaza were used to manufacture weapons. In reality, upon his release from prison, Sinwar worked discreetly to strengthen the militia. He improved relations with Iran, which has supported Hamas with $70 million a year since 2018, by providing it with advanced missiles, ammunition and military training. According to The Wall Street Journal, When he was in prison, the future Hamas leader told his doctor that Israel considers itself a strong state because the majority of Israelis serve in the military and that soldiers are of greater value in this country, but that this strength could also become a weakness. This was realized in 2011, when 1,027 Palestinians accused of terrorism were released in exchange for a single Israeli soldier. For Yuval Bitton, this is one of the reasons why Sinwar ordered the abduction of IDF soldiers on October 7. He was banking on their release in exchange for thousands of Palestinians arrested in Israel. Sinwar has studied Israeli society and the way its citizens think.
A life based on revenge
Little by little, his rhetoric became more violent. In 2022, he declared in front of hundreds of Palestinians that he would flood Israel with “a roaring flood and countless missiles” if Jews continued to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque. But Israel did not take this threat seriously, considering it to be empty words.
In truth, Sinwar organized everything to get revenge. According to several testimonies from his fellow prisoners, he had no doubt that jihad was the only way to make the Jews pay for their actions in Jerusalem. He also wanted to avenge his comrades, former Hamas leaders Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, as well as dozens of other jihadists eliminated by Israel. It should not be forgotten that revenge is a central aspect of Hamas ideology. The movement is ready to attack in response to the death of one of its leaders, as was the case in 2012, when the war was launched in response to the elimination of Ahmad Al-Jaabari, the leader at the time of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Since its inception, Hamas has named its weapons after its leaders who died as “martyrs” who waged jihad against Israel, such as the Al-Ghoul sniper rifle, in honor of Adnan al-Ghoul, the weapons manufacturer who was assassinated by Israel in 2004.
Ready to go all the way
It is possible that Hamas decided to appoint Sinwar as its general leader because leaders are safer in the tunnels of Gaza than abroad. But by analyzing his background, we can be sure that this jihadist, the most extremist within the Islamist organization, is ready to go to the end in this war, not for the lives of Palestinians, but for the death of Israel. Upon his appointment, he announced that his movement would not cease fire until Israel leaves Gaza and the release of imprisoned Palestinians, including Marwan Barghouti, accused of having ordered an attack that killed several Israeli civilians during the second Intifada in 2000. Which Israel refused.
Following the announcement of new negotiations between the two warring parties in Doha on August 15, Sinwar refused to send a Hamas delegation. The talks are therefore taking place between Qatar, Egypt and the United States. The spokesman for the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the goal of the negotiations is to obtain a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of the hostages and the entry of the largest possible quantity of humanitarian aid into the territory. But even if this is achieved, we should not expect a lasting peace. Sinwar wants to liberate Jerusalem from the Jews; this is not only the ideology of Hamas, but the central objective of its strategy, built around intelligence services, manipulation and hatred.
* A writer and poet born in Damascus, Omar Youssef Souleimane took part in the demonstrations against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, but, hunted by the secret services, had to flee Syria in 2012. A refugee in France, he published with Flammarion The Little Terrorist, The Last Syrian, A room in exile, and recently Being French.
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