Israel says it is investigating whether Hamas’s Sinwar killed in Gaza attack
Israel’s army says it is investigating whether Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed in an attack in Gaza.
No confirmation of attack on Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar
In the past few minutes, we received a statement from the Israeli army and intelligence services saying that they had targeted a building and that three Hamas figures were killed, and they were verifying whether one of them was, in fact, the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
Sinwar was elected as the leader of the Hamas movement after Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh in Iran earlier in the year.
We have to stress there is absolutely no confirmation. We have not heard from Hamas.
Even the Israeli military sources say it could take hours for them to confirm from their end whether that assassination was actually successful, but if that is correct, this would be the second head of the Hamas movement killed just during this war.
Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas in Gaza, chairs a meeting with leaders of Palestinian factions at his office in Gaza City
Israeli media reporting DNA test conducted to confirm identity of killed fighter
We’re now hearing more through leaks in Israeli media. There was an incident where the Israeli army identified three gunmen in Tal as-Sultan, an area in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
They engaged those three gunmen and killed them, and only then did they suspect that one of those fighters was, in fact, Yahya Sinwar. According to some reports, the body has been taken back inside Israel.
It’s now in Jerusalem in order to conduct DNA testing to confirm the identity of that fighter. In question, there are strong indications, at least in the Israeli media, they are almost certain that it is Yahya Sinwar.
But we have – it’s very important to point this out – no official confirmation from the Israeli side and no word yet from Hamas. Until we hear from them we can’t confirm with certainty that that assassination has actually taken place or has been successful.
We can also tell you that the prime minister of Israel has asked his military secretary to contact the families of the Israeli captives, to tell them that the captives were not in the vicinity of that gunfight when it happened.
And this is really important because it reminds everybody that now, perhaps, if this assassination is confirmed, the fate of the Israeli captives who remain in Gaza, many of whom remain alive, will be more in doubt.
Who will the Israelis talk to? Who will the mediators try to reach a deal with? This is the second time Israel targets the top leader of Hamas while it’s still seeking to reach a deal to free the Israeli captives held in Gaza.
Israeli political commentator Ori Goldberg says the possibility of Sinwar being killed is a “meaningful event” for Israel so the army would not want to officially announce it until they’re “105 percent sure”.
“If Israel has managed to kill Yahya Sinwar that might be the only event on the ground that could potentially get Israel to stop decimating Gaza. That is the symbolic achievement Israel has been looking for,” Goldberg told Al Jazeera.
“Israel has been fighting in Gaza ultimately without any sort of clear plan except to kill as many Hamas operatives as possible and destroy as much … as possible,” he added.
US officials have long looked to Sinwar's eventual death as a key opportunity to end the Israel-Hamas war
US officials were mum in the immediate moments after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced it was investigating whether a strike in Gaza had taken out Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
If Sinwar is in fact confirmed dead, the ramifications for the Biden administration would be momentous. His potential death, perhaps more than anything else, the singular event that many US officials had pointed to as the biggest potential game-changer in the Israel-Hamas war that has now been ongoing for more than a year.
With a ceasefire and hostages deal to pause the war stubbornly stuck for months, senior administration officials had hung onto hope that Sinwar might one day be taken out – and that that could open up doors that simply would not be otherwise. US officials have looked at Sinwar, simply put, the scalp that Israel needs most to be able to declare that they are done with the Gaza war.
Even in discussions of a so-called “all for all” deal – the idea that every hostage held by Hamas would be released in exchange for every Palestinian prisoner that Hamas wants freed – which is widely viewed as far-fetched – some US officials had mused perhaps such an idea could be remotely viable if Sinwar were dead.
