GAZA: The Israeli military said it had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in an operation in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday. "After completing the process of identifying the body, it can be confirmed that Yahya Sinwar was eliminated," it said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz also said on Thursday that Sinwar has been killed.
There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas, although Hamas sources said indications from Gaza suggested that Sinwar had been killed in an Israeli operation.
Besides his brother, Mohammed, a top Hamas commander, Sinwar is believed to have been the last Hamas leader on a high-profile Israeli hit list drawn up after the October 7 attack.
For Sinwar, armed struggle remained the only way to force the creation of a Palestinian nation, Palestinian officials and Arab sources, speaking in weeks leading to the October 7 anniversary.
Operating from the shadows of a network of labyrinthine tunnels under Gaza, two Israeli sources said Sinwar had over the past year survived Israeli airstrikes, which have reportedly killed his deputy Mohammed Deif and other senior leaders.
Sinwar has operated in secrecy, moving constantly and using trusted messengers for non-digital communication, according to three Hamas officials and one regional official. He has not been seen in public since October 7, 2023.
Half a dozen people who know Sinwar told Reuters his resolve was shaped by an impoverished childhood in Gaza's refugee camps and a brutal 22 years in Israeli custody, including a period in Ashkelon, the town his parents called home before fleeing after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
Sinwar became a member of Hamas soon after its founding in the 1980s, adopting the group's Islamist ideology, which seeks to establish an Islamic state in historic Palestine and opposes Israel's existence.
"What lies behind his resolve is tenacity of ideology, tenacity of goal. He's ascetic and satisfied with little," said one senior Hamas official who requested anonymity.
Before the war, Sinwar would sometimes tell of his early life in Gaza during decades of Israeli occupation, once saying his mother made clothes from empty UN food-aid sacks, according to Gaza resident Wissam Ibrahim, who has met him.
A ruthless enforcer tasked with punishing Palestinians suspected of informing for Israel, Sinwar then made his name as a prison leader, emerging as a street hero from a 22-year Israeli sentence for masterminding the abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians.
He then quickly rose to the top of the Hamas ranks.
His understanding of the everyday hardships and brutal realities in Gaza was well-received by Gazans and made people feel at ease, four journalists and three Hamas officials said, despite his fearsome reputation and explosive anger.
Sinwar is regarded by Arab and Palestinian officials as the architect of Hamas' strategy and military power, bolstered through his strong ties with Iran, which he visited in 2012.
Before orchestrating the October 7 raids Sinwar made no secret of his desire to strike his enemy hard.
In a speech the year before, he vowed to send a flood of fighters and rockets to Israel, hinting at a war that would either unite the world to establish a Palestinian state on land Israel occupied in 1967, or leave the Jewish nation isolated on the global stage.
By the time of the speech, Sinwar and Deif had already hatched secret plans for the assault. They were even running training drills in public that simulated such an attack.
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