Yahya Sinwar Age, Death, Wife, Family, Biography

Some Lesser Known Facts About Yahya Sinwar

• Sinwar’s family was forced to leave their home in Al-Majdal Asqalan (now Ashkelon) during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

• After that, they sought refuge in the Gaza Strip.

• While growing up in a refugee camp, Yahya Sinwar got connected with Hamas.

• He was first arrested in 1982 for revolutionary activities. During this period, he met other Palestinian activists, including Salah Shehade, in Far’a prison.

• After being arrested again in 1985 and later released, Yahya Sinwar co-founded Majd, an organization that identified the Palestinians who work for Israel.

• In 1987, Majd became the Hamas ‘police.’

• Yahya Sinwar earned the nickname ‘The Butcher of Khan Younis’ for killing people who were suspected of teaming with Israel.

• In 1988, he planned the kidnapping and killing of two Israeli soldiers and the murder of four Palestinians whom he believed were working with Israel.

• Yahya Sinwar was arrested in February 1988 and confessed to killing the four Palestinians: one was strangled, another suffocated with a kaffiyeh, a third was accidentally killed during interrogation, and the fourth was shot during a kidnapping attempt.

• He showed investigators the location where the bodies were buried.

• In 1989, Yahya Sinwar was sentenced to four life sentences.
  

  A young Yahya Sinwar

• While in prison, he was suspected of ordering the beheadings of two other suspected informants, whose severed body parts were thrown out of cells.

• Yahya Sinwar was highly respected by fellow prisoners for his cleverness. He made several escape attempts, including digging a tunnel under his cell.

• After coming out of prison, he worked with many Hamas leaders, smuggled cell phones, and sent messages to visitors.

• Many of these messages involved plans to kidnap Israeli soldiers for prisoner exchanges.

• Yahya Sinwar later said in the media that capturing an Israeli soldier gave prisoners hope for their release.

• His time in prison was a turning point in his life as it helped him to shape his leadership abilities, as noted by senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad.

• He learned Hebrew, the official language of Israel, through an online program and studied Israeli news to better understand his opponents.

• Yahya Sinwar translated Hebrew autobiographies of former Shin Bet chiefs into Arabic and shared them with inmates to study counterterrorism strategies.

• He called himself a ‘specialist in the Jewish people’s history.’

• Yahya Sinwar told supporters that prison was meant to break them, but they turned it into places for worship and study.

• During his imprisonment, he took 15 courses through the Open University of Israel for over seven years, starting in 1995.

• Yahya Sinwar studied history topics like the Jews in the Second Temple and Rabbinic periods, the First Temple period, the Holocaust, and Zionism, as well as political science focusing on Israeli governance and democracy.

• Hamas leaders in prison are elected democratically. Committees manage daily tasks, while an ’emir’ and a high commission oversee big decisions for short terms.

• In 2004, Yahya Sinwar was appointed as an emir with his companion Rawhi Mushtaha.

• During this period, he stayed humble and participated in daily activities like cooking with other prisoners, and even making knafeh to build connections.
  

  Yahya Sinwar after being arrested by Israel

• In 2004, Yahya Sinwar started experiencing symptoms like fainting during prayer and neck pain. A prison dentist, Yuval Bitton, suspected a serious brain issue and recommended urgent hospitalization.

• At Soroka Medical Center, Israeli surgeons removed his brain tumour that could have been fatal. Without surgery, the tumour would have burst.

• After the surgery, Yahya Sinwar expressed his thanks to the dentist through a Muslim prison officer, explaining how important the life-saving surgery was in Islam and how he felt indebted.

• After that, he began meeting regularly with the dentist, focusing their discussions on Hamas ideology and ignoring any chance of a two-state solution. They claimed that the land belonged to Muslims.

• During a cell search, guards found a handwritten novel by Yahya Sinwar, completed in 2004, titled ‘The Thorn and the Carnation.’ The novel was about a boy from Gaza, Ahmed, living under Israeli occupation during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It reflected Sinwar’s own experiences and the Palestinian opposition.
  

  The cover of the book ‘The Thorn and the Carnation’

• In 2005, he warned Israelis to ‘be scared’ of Hamas’s election victory in an interview with an Israeli TV outlet, but he privately said that Hamas was much dependent on the Israeli government’s actions.

• Yahya Sinwar stated that Hamas sought rights from Israel, but not total control of the entire region.

• In 2011, he played a major role in negotiating the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

• Even after over a thousand prisoners were freed, Sinwar’s refusal to compromise caused tension within Hamas leadership, mainly with Saleh al-Arouri, who was more willing to negotiate.

• He attempted to organize a hunger strike involving 1,600 Hamas prisoners and made the negotiations more difficult.

• After some time, his influence decreased, and other Hamas leaders made a deal without him. He was placed in solitary confinement by Israeli authorities.

• In 2011, Yahya Sinwar became the highest-ranking Palestinian prisoner released in exchange for Gilad Shalit, along with 1,026 others.
  

  Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, after being released by Hamas

• In a Hamas TV interview after his release, he encouraged further efforts to kidnap Israeli soldiers for future prisoner exchanges.

• In June 2024, The Wall Street Journal published some leaked communications in which Yahya Sinwar allegedly claimed that Israeli civilian deaths were the ‘necessary sacrifices’ for Palestine’s rise to glory.

• The authenticity of these messages was not verified, and Hamas spokesperson Ghazi Hamad denied that Sinwar made such remarks. Hamad stated that Sinwar was focused on ending the conflict.

• On 31 July 2024, after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas named Yahya Sinwar as the new overall leader of the movement and chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau.
  

  An old picture of Ismail Haniyeh kissing Yahya Sinwar

• This decision was made after a unanimous vote by the Shura Council, which is responsible for electing Hamas’s political bureau, and was seen as a message of defiance to Israel.

• On 3 September 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice announced criminal charges against Yahya Sinwar for his role in the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, including conspiracy to support a terrorist organization and murder U.S. nationals.

• On 17 October 2024, the Israeli military reported that they were investigating whether he was killed during an operation in Gaza a day earlier.

• The next day, DNA analysis confirmed that Yahya Sinwar was killed in the operation.

• After that, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Sinwar’s death as the beginning of a new era. He encouraged Gazans to break free from Hamas rule and showed mercy to hostage-takers who surrendered.

• He was fluent in Hebrew, which he learned during his time in prison, and he also had an understanding of Israeli culture.

• Yahya Sinwar was a hafiz, a person who had completely learned the Quran.