On Thursday October 16, 2023, Commander Yahya Sinwar was killed above the ground after a gun battle with the IOF in Rafah. He was found above ground wearing a combat vest loaded with extra magazines, hand grenades, and an AK by his side alongside three of his bodyguards. He was not hiding in a tunnel among civilians or using the hostages as human shields to protect himself as Israel always claimed. And most certainly Sinwar was not dressed up as a woman to avoid detection.
Following the gun battle with Sinwar and his comrades in arms, the IOF sent a drone into the house for surveillance and the drone operation noticed someone alive who resembles Sinwar. After Sinwar saw the drone, he threw a large stick at the drone as a final act of defiance. His other arm was injured and it looks like he was able to put a torniquet to stop bleeding. When the soldiers entered the house, Sinwar was already dead. They took pictures and a video of his body and posted on social media. Upon learning the news from international media, Crime Minister Netanyahu had a meltdown and threatened to punish the soldiers involved for not going through the chain of command about releasing the picture. Obviously, Netanyahu is no longer to make a story up how and where Sinwar was killed. His soldiers spilled the beans and he could not lie like he did about the raped women and the beheaded babies after Hamas broke the siege around Gaza on October 7.
Here is a list of items found on Yahya Sinwar after his death: AK 47, rosary, extra magazines, two boxes of bullets, a roll of Mentos, fingernail clipper, small electric tap, and M-16 that is used by the IOF. Later, the IOF stated the gun belongs to one of its killed soldiers. Lebanese political commentator Hadi Nasrallah tweeted after Sinwar's martyrdom, "Israel wants you to call a man who fought till his last breath a 'coward,' and their perverted soldiers' 'heroes.' And when the owner of the house in which Sinwar was killed was asked for a reaction about losing his house, he said, 'That is a small price to pay,' adding, 'Nothing more valuable than the life Yahya Sinwar (Abu Ibrahim).'"
To Palestinians, martyrdom is an honor. Even a Haaretz reader with the name "Ann" left a comment on the paper's message board four days after Sinwar's death, "What it really did was show him as a warrior who resisted to the end and who they couldn't get to without a drone. The video posting was the dumbest thing to do. (Ann) and the IOF soldiers stated "The killing of Hamas leader was largely a matter of chance and a draw of luck and not based on intelligence."
Nasir Khan eulogized Sinwar with a Facebook post that said, "Sinwar died while resisting his killers but the fact that he resisted does not make his death any less a murder. His killing is part of an illegal imperialist-backed war whose aim is the extermination of the population of Gaza and the annexation of the territory illegally occupied by Israel since 1967."
Two days later, a Haartez reader with the name "Strength" posted a comment on Haaretz saying, "If Israel is smart, they'll let the aid trucks flood in now by the hundreds and lift those restrictions the WHO is talking about. I thought Bibi's speech was actually fairly decent, but the problem is that by now nobody believes a word he says. Haaretz October 18, 2024)."
With all honesty, Crime Minister Netanyahu does not give a damn about the hostages, let alone the starving Palestinians in Gaza. Netanyahu wishes all Palestinians to die and vanish from the face of the earth.
Omar Abdaljawad Omar wrote a brilliant article about Commander Sinwar in Mondoweiss on October 21, 2024. It said in part, "Their own newspapers describe Israeli leaders as “psychopathic,” manipulative, calculating, and indifferent even to the fate of Israeli captives. Meanwhile, Palestinian leaders have fought and died to free their prisoners. The contrast couldn’t be starker between a leadership driven by self-preservation and detached power and a leadership bound to the struggle for liberation and its sacrifices both personal and collective." Omar concluded by eloquently saying, "And even if Israel annihilates every last Palestinian, the world will know the truth — it was not the Israelis who won, but their machines."
Dan Cohen tweeted following Sinwar's martyrdom, "Israel made the mistake of publishing footage of Yahya Sinwar's last moments. Wearing a keffiyeh and severely injured, he threw a stick at the drone filming him – a final act of defiance against the Zionist occupation. In his death, he became a legend."
Sinwar is from Khan Younis refugee camp. He was originally from the Palestinian town of Asqalan. Coincidently he spent most his 23-year prison term in Ashkelon, the same town where he was born and whose name Israel has later changed."
Okaz is an Arabic weekly newspaper published in one of the Gulf states, shamefully published a picture of Sinwar's body surrounded by few IOF soldiers with a caption that reads, "Hamas bedoun rass." ( In English: Hamas is headless). The shameless publication chronologized the life of Sinwar in the same article as followed:
*He held a bachelor's degree in Hebrew from the Islamic University in Gaza.
*He was active and close associate to Hamas founder Ahmad Yasin that Israel assassinated in 2004.
*He was arrested three times by the IOF.
*In 1982, he was arrested for four months under the Administrative Detention Act and released without charges or trial.
*In 1985, he established Hamas Intelligence to monitor Palestinian collaborators with Israel for which he was arrested and served eight months in jail.
*In 1988, he was arrested again and received 4 death sentences for the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and executing two Palestinian collaborators.
During his imprisonment, Yahya Sinwar dug a tunnel under Ashkelon's prison in an attempt to escape but regrettably it was discovered by one of the prison guards.
Finally, after over 20 years in prison and in 2011, he was freed as part of the 2011 POW exchange along with more than 1,000 Palestinians in exchange for a single Israeli soldier where he and his freed comrades were welcomed back to Gaza as heroes.
At the early stage of the Ukraine war, President Zelenskyy was offered a free helicopter ride for safety to any country in Europe. He refused and said, "I want ammunition and not a ride." For that, he was praised as hero in the West. Similarly, Sinwar has repeatedly said his wish in life was to die as a martyr and not from Covid or a heart attack and one day to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque in liberated Jerusalem. Yahya Sinwar rejected an opportunity to survive and leave the Gaza Strip in exchange for allowing Egypt to negotiate a Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal in Hamas’ behalf but he flatly rejected by saying, "My life is not worth it more than the people of Gaza." Rather than praising him as a hero and patriotic man, the West depicted him as a "terrorist" and radical.
Commander Yahya Sinwar lived as a legend and died as a hero. Rest in power, Commander Yahya Sinwar!
Mahmoud El-Yousseph is a Palestinian freelancer for Islamicity.com and ColumbusFreePress.com. He can be reached at elyousseph6@yahoo.com.