By Samia Nakhoul
(Reuters) – Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is unrepentant about the October 7 attacks a year ago, people close to him say, despite unleashing an Israeli invasion that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and devastated his Gaza homeland and wreaked havoc on ally Hezbollah.
For 62-year-old Sinwar, architect of Hamas' cross-border attacks that became the deadliest day in Israel's history, armed struggle remains the only way to enforce the creation of a Palestinian nation, four Palestinian officials and two sources say governments in the Middle East. .
The October 7 attacks killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and captured 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures, on the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Israel responded by launching a massive offensive, killing 41,600 people and displacing 1.9 million, according to Palestinian health authorities and UN figures.
Now the conflict has spread to Lebanon, where Israel is severely humiliating the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah, killing most of its leaders. Hamas patron Tehran is at risk of becoming involved in open war with Israel.
Sinwar has brought Iran and its entire “Axis of Resistance” — made up of Hezbollah, the Yemeni Houthis and Iraqi militias — into conflict with Israel, said Hassan Hassan, an author and researcher on Islamic groups.
“We are now seeing the ripple effects of October 7. Sinwar's gamble didn't work,” Hassan said, suggesting the Axis of Resistance may never recover.
“What Israel did to Hezbollah in two weeks is almost equivalent to a whole year of humiliating Hamas in Gaza. Hezbollah has seen three levels of leadership eliminated, its military command decimated and its key leader Hassan Nasrallah assassinated. Hassan added.
However, Sinwar's grip on Hamas remains firm, despite some signs of dissent among Gaza residents.
He was elected the overall leader of the Islamist movement after his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh was killed in a suspected Israeli attack during a visit to Tehran in July. Israel has not confirmed its involvement in the attack.
Operating from the shadows of a network of labyrinthine tunnels under Gaza, two Israeli sources say Sinwar and his brother, also a top commander, appear to have so far survived Israeli airstrikes that reportedly killed his deputy Mohammed Deif and other senior leaders .
According to three Hamas officials and a regional official, dubbed “The Face of Evil” by Israel, Sinwar operates in secret, is constantly on the move and uses trusted messengers for non-digital communications. He has not been seen in public since October 7.
During months of failed ceasefire talks led by Qatar and Egypt that focused on swapping prisoners for hostages, Sinwar was the sole decision-maker, three Hamas sources said. Negotiators waited for days for answers filtered through a secret chain of messengers.
Hamas and Israel did not respond to requests for comment.
Sinwar's high tolerance for suffering, both for himself and for the Palestinian people, in the name of a cause became clear when, in 2011, he helped negotiate the exchange of 1,027 prisoners, including himself, for a kidnapped Israeli soldier held in Gaza held. The kidnapping by Hamas had led to an Israeli attack on the coastal enclave and thousands of Palestinian deaths.
Half a dozen people who know Sinwar told Reuters that his resolve was shaped by an impoverished childhood in Gaza's refugee camps and a brutal 22 years in Israeli custody, including a stint in Ashkelon, the city his parents called home before fleeing after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. war.
The issue of hostages and prisoner swaps is deeply personal to Sinwar, said all the sources, who requested anonymity to speak freely about sensitive matters. He has pledged to release all Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
Sinwar joined Hamas shortly after its founding in the 1980s and adopted the group's radical Islamist ideology, which seeks the establishment of an Islamic state in historic Palestine and opposes the existence of Israel.
The ideology sees Israel not only as a political rival, but also as an occupying power on Muslim land. Seen in this light, hardship and suffering are often interpreted by him and his followers as part of a larger Islamic belief of sacrifice, experts on Islamic movements say.
“What lies behind his determination is the tenacity of ideology, the tenacity of purpose. He is ascetic and satisfied with little,” said a senior Hamas official who requested anonymity.
FROM CORRECT TO LEADER
Before the war, Sinwar would sometimes talk about his early life in Gaza during decades of Israeli occupation, once saying his mother made clothes from empty UN food aid bags, according to Gaza resident Wissam Ibrahim, who has met him.
In a semi-autobiographical novel written in prison, Sinwar described scenes of troops bulldozing Palestinian homes, “like a monster crushing the bones of its prey”, before Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.
A ruthless enforcer charged with punishing Palestinians suspected of informing Israel, Sinwar went on to make a name for himself as a prison leader and emerged as a street hero after serving a 22-year Israeli sentence for masterminding the kidnapping 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 Gaza residents 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 capabilities, boosted by his strong ties with Iran, which he visited in 2012.
Before orchestrating the October 7 raids, Sinwar made no secret of his desire to crack down on his enemy.
In a speech the year before, he promised to send a flood of fighters and missiles into Israel, hinting at a war that would either unite the world to establish a Palestinian state on the land Israel occupied in 1967, or Jewish nation isolated on the border of the Palestinian territories. global stage.
By the time of the speech, Sinwar and Deif had already devised secret plans for the attack. They even conducted training exercises in public that simulated such an attack.
His objectives have not been achieved. Although the issue is once again at the top of the global agenda, the prospect of a Palestinian nation is as remote as ever. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has categorically rejected a post-war plan for Gaza that would include a firm timetable for the creation of a Palestinian state.
'HEAD HARDER THAN A ROCK'
Sinwar was arrested in 1988 and sentenced to four life sentences, accused of orchestrating the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers and four suspected Palestinian informants.
Nabih Awadah, a former Lebanese communist militant who was imprisoned with Sinwar in Ashkelon between 1991 and 1995, said the Hamas leader viewed the 1993 Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority as “disastrous” and a ruse by Israel. which he believes would be a ruse. only giving up Palestinian land 'by force, not by negotiation'.
Awadah called him “deliberate and dogmatic” and said Sinwar would light up with joy if he heard of attacks on Israelis by Hamas or the Lebanese Hezbollah group. For him, a military confrontation was the only path 'to the liberation of Palestine' from the Israeli occupation.
Awadah said Sinwar was an “influential model for all prisoners, even those who were not Islamists or religious.”
Michael Koubi, a former Israeli Shin Bet security service official who interrogated Sinwar for 180 hours in prison, said Sinwar stood out because of his ability to intimidate and command.
Koubi once asked the militant, then 28 or 29 years old, why he was not yet married. “He told me that Hamas is my wife, Hamas is my child. Hamas is everything to me.” Sinwar married after his release from prison in 2011 and has three children.
In prison, he continued to pursue Palestinian spies, Awadah said, echoing reports from Shin Bet interrogators.
His keen instincts and caution allowed him to identify and expose Shin Bet informants who had infiltrated the prison, Awadah said.
He said Sinwar's leadership was crucial during a 1992 hunger strike in which he led more than 1,000 prisoners to survive solely on water and salt. Sinwar negotiated with the prison authorities and refused to settle for partial concessions.
He also used his time in prison to learn fluent Hebrew.
Awadah said Sinwar often remembered that Ashkelon, where they were imprisoned together, was his family's birthplace.
When he played table tennis in the courtyard of Ashkelon Prison, in what is now Israel, Sinwar often played barefoot and said he wanted his feet to touch the land of Palestine.
“Sinwar often told us, 'I am not in prison; I am on my land. I am free here, in my country.'”
(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; Writing by Samia Nakhoul; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)
