Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar confirmed dead, Israeli military says

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the widely-recognized mastermind behind the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, was confirmed dead on Thursday, according to the Israeli military.
“Troops appeared to have run across him unknowingly in a battle, only to discover afterwards that a body in the rubble was Israel’s most wanted man,” The Associated Press reported.
Sinwar has been a high-priority target for the Israel Defense Forces since Hamas’ attack on Israel more than one year ago that killed roughly 1,200 people, with 200 more being taken hostage, sparking a 13-month-long war in the Middle East.
In a statement from the White House, President Joe Biden said that DNA testing confirmed that Sinwar was killed in battle. “This is a good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world,” Biden said.
Prior to rising within the Iran-backed militia group’s ranks, NBC News reported that Sinwar was born in a refugee camp and later spent more than two decades in an Israeli prison.
According to ABC News, in 1989, “an Israeli court sentenced Sinwar to four life sentences for his role in killing suspected Palestinian informers and plotting to murder two Israeli soldiers.”
Sinwar, who served as Hamas’ leader since 2017, per ABC, “spent the following 22 years in prison before becoming one of more than 1,000 Palestinian detainees released in 2011 in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.”
“The death of Sinwar for Israel is the equivalent to the death of Osama Bin Laden to the United States,” Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy told NBC earlier this year. “He is the mastermind of the worst terrorist attack the nation has ever suffered — more broadly, the worst attack suffered by Jews in any one day since the Holocaust.”
In a Thursday post on X, Israel Foreign Minister Israel Katz detailed how Sinwar’s death is a victory for Israel, saying, “Sinwar’s elimination opens the door for the immediate release of the hostages and paves the way for the end of Hamas’ rule and a new reality in Gaza. Israel now expects the backing and support of the free world to advance these critical objectives together.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated the news of Sinwar’s death, saying the Hamas leader was “a mass murderer who killed thousands of Israelis and kidnapped hundreds of our citizens,” per The New York Times. “Today, evil took a heavy blow — the mission ahead of us is still unfinished,” Netanyahu added, saying that Sinwar’s death marks “an important milestone in the sunset of Hamas’s evil rule in Gaza.”
In a press conference on Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris echoed that sentiment, saying, “Today, I can only hope that the families of the victims of Hamas feel a sense and measure of relief.” The Democratic presidential nominee later added, “This moment gives us an opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza, and it must end such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination. And it is time for the day after to begin without Hamas in power.”