Israel says Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is dead : NPR

Israel has confirmed the demise of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, an Israeli official with information of the matter tells NPR.

The Israeli authorities believes he was the mastermind behind Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel.

Israel presumes Sinwar had been hiding in tunnels, with some analysts speculating he surrounded himself with Israeli hostages to guard him from assassination makes an attempt.

The army stated there have been no indicators of Israeli hostages within the space of the constructing the place the three militants had been killed and that troops had been working within the space with “warning.”

The army stated earlier three militants had been and that Israel’s Shin Guess home intelligence company was wanting into whether or not considered one of them was Sinwar — Israel’s No. 1 most needed man in Gaza.

An official conversant in the matter talking anonymously to expose extra particulars stated the militants had been killed Wednesday in an Israeli firefight in southern Gaza. The official stated a physique is being checked for a match with Sinwar’s DNA.

Sinwar was the chief of Hamas in Gaza when the Palestinian militant group led a shock assault on Israel simply over a 12 months in the past, killing some 1,200 folks and taking round 250 hostages, in accordance with Israeli officers. About 100 hostages are nonetheless being held in Gaza, round a 3rd of whom are believed to be useless.

He was appointed the chief of the complete group after Israel killed his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, in an explosion in Tehran in July. The Israeli army additionally stated it had killed the top of Hamas’ army wing, Mohammed Deif, in an airstrike in July. The Israeli army had earlier killed Hamas’ deputy political chief Salah Arouri in a bombing in Beirut in January.

Following the Oct. 7, 2023, assault, Israel’s army marketing campaign in Gaza has killed greater than 42,400 Palestinians and injured greater than 99,000, in accordance with Gaza’s Well being Ministry.

Born on Oct. 29, 1962, in accordance with Hamas, Sinwar helped discovered the group’s inside safety equipment within the late Nineteen Eighties. He earned a nickname amongst Palestinians: the “butcher of Khan Younis,” the place he grew up within the southern Gaza Strip.

Sinwar was seen as a hard-liner inside Hamas, much less prone to attain a ceasefire cope with Israel than different extra pragmatic leaders. He was believed to have been directing operations from the group’s in depth tunnel community beneath the Gaza Strip, speaking with the surface world by the use of handwritten notes delivered by couriers to keep away from Israeli air strikes which have killed tens of hundreds of Palestinians within the besieged coastal enclave.

This can be a creating story that shall be up to date.