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Yahya Sinwar

Former leader of Hamas (Gaza chief from 2017; overall Hamas leader 2024)

Yahya Sinwar
Editorial visualFormer leader of Hamas (Gaza chief from 2017; overall Hamas leader 2024)

Palestinian militant and political figure (1962-2024) who led Hamas in the Gaza Strip from 2017 and became overall Hamas leader in 2024. Widely reported as a chief architect of the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, he was killed by the IDF in Rafah on 16 October 2024.

Yahya Sinwar (Yahya Ibrahim Hassan Sinwar) was a Palestinian militant and politician, born 29 October 1962 in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.

A founding figure in Hamas's security apparatus, he was sentenced in Israel to four life terms in 1989 for orchestrating the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and of Palestinians he accused of collaboration. He served about 22 years before being freed among more than 1,000 prisoners in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange.

Sinwar became Hamas's leader in the Gaza Strip in 2017 and, after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, the movement's overall leader (chairman of the Political Bureau) in 2024. He is widely reported to have been a chief architect of the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

Israel says its forces killed Sinwar in Rafah on 16 October 2024. Hamas designated no permanent single successor; its leadership has since operated through a collective interim arrangement.

Reference

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