TYahya Sinwar’s body was found in the place he envisioned—the dusty ruins of an apocalyptic war ignited by a covert attack he had secretly planned for years, and unveiled on Oct. 7, 2023. What was found was that the fighting only continued. It is 25 miles east and about four kilometers south from the devastated area in southern Gaza where the Hamas leader died a year and nine days later. The “great operation,” as Hamas called Sinwar’s plan, had not united the entire Middle East as expected, or brought about the downfall of Israel. Ground zero of the apocalypse remains the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian enclave Sinwar ruled when he unleashed an attack that led to its destruction.
Fear aims to provoke an overreaction. If the first phase of Oct. 7—breaking the fence built by Israel and bypassing its military ports—was a tactical military operation, the attack on settlements beyond that was another. During his 22 years in an Israeli prison, Sinwar was an avid student not only of Hebrew but also of Jewish history, including the pogroms. His release in 2011 brought another lesson: Sinwar, then known as the “Butcher of Khan Yunis” for his brutality in sending suspected informers, returned to Gaza among the more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners Israel traded for the release of one Jewish soldier. As Israeli hostage negotiator David Meidan has noted: “The issue of hostages is our soft underbelly.”
Sinwar’s death could open the door to a ceasefire that frees dozens of Israeli hostages still in Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who opposed the deal while the architect of the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history was still alive, was described in the report as one of the most open in a phone call with President Joe Biden on Thursday. Beyond thinking are conversations of any other kind.
Read more: Families of Hostages in Life After 7 Oct.
For Sinwar’s grim statistics of mass killings, the main count is the body count. The Palestinian question is back on the world agenda, and Israel’s global reputation, already suffering from a half-century occupation of the Palestinian territories, is deeply stained. Most polls in the past year have shown Palestinians are more inclined to accept the war of Hamas, which is the Arabic name for the Islamic Resistance Movement. But those things are more important to the negotiated peace regime that Hamas rejects: Camp David and Oslo were the conflicts through which the world watched the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. October 7 he demolished it.
In the Gaza Strip, however, where 1.9 million people have fled their homes and the risk of starvation is growing, support for the October 7 attack is showing signs of slipping. Dealing with Israel on military terms allows Israel to frame the Palestinian question as a question not of national ambition, or justice, but as a question of security. And, especially with US military aid at $17.9 billion this year, security is Israel’s strong suit. Stunned by Sinwar’s blow, it has since moved forward against the forces that Hamas hoped would help it—Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, and their common sponsor, Iran. This month Israeli columns have also been returning to northern Gaza, withholding food aid and warning residents to leave or be taken as targets.
Read more: Special: Netanyahu At War.
According to the statistics of the Hamas government he led, Sinwar, 61, was preceded by 42,438 of his people, more than half of whom were women and children. His family’s whereabouts are unknown, but he is thought to appear briefly in footage released earlier this year that the Israeli military says is beneath the grave. In it, Sinwar moves single file through a tunnel, behind a girl holding a doll and a boy using a flip phone as a flashlight.
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